Ch1 Internet Basics

HTTP- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

Sir Tim Berners Lee and Robert Cailliau invented the World Wide Web while working at CERN (European Council for
Nuclear Research).

How does WWW work?

Person using internet uses a software known as Web Browser to request for a document or a web page. Browser
requests the internet host/server which contains that document. Browser acts as a customer or a client. After receiving
the request the internet host passes the information to the clients. The protocol used in this exchange is HTTP.

Internet WWW
Defined as a network of millions of computers connected Set of programs, standards and protocols which govern
worldwide to share data and information. the manner of creating and displaying the files on the
internet.
Internet offers various services like email, chatting etc. WWW is one of the services available on internet.
Works independently of WWW Is a part of Internet
Administered by Internet Protocol (IP) Managed by HTTP

Web Client: Web client is an application (Google chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and explorer) running on a local device
(Desktop, mobile) that requests and uses services provided by a web server. Also known as thin client. A client is any
machine sending the requests for information, and the server is responding to the information requested. Examples are
web browser, an email program, chatting program.

Newsgroup: Online platform where people can exchange information on any topic.

Email address: A unique electronic address where emails are received. Consists of a username and a domain name
separated by an @ symbol.

Server Web Server

Type of computer or device on a network that provides A program or a computer responsible for providing web
services to clients connected to it. contents. Stores processes and delivers web content.
Can be a shared server or a dedicated server. Is a dedicated server.
Eg: Application server, file server Eg: Apache server, IBM Lotus, Sun Java System, Microsoft
IIS server

Website

Website is a collection of publically accessible web pages often containing related information.

Domain Name: Every computer connected to internet has a unique address. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers) has designed a system to provide a unique address to each computer in the form of numbers or
characters. Character based addressing system is known as the Domain Name, whereas the number based addressing
system is known as an IP address.

Web Host: Service that provides space on the internet for the maintenance of the website. Commonly used operating
systems for hosting servers are Apache Linux and Windows.

Content Management System (CMS): aids in managing the content of a website. Helps in creating, desiging, and
modifying the content of a website. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal are examples.

Web Portal is a gateway to a wide range of internet services such as email, search engines, e-commerce etc.
Web Page

Web Page: A document commonly written in HTML hosted on the internet. Each web page is identified by a unique
address called Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

Hypertext: Digital text has a unique feature of linking to other documents or web pages. May be in form of a text,
graphic, video or audio. Known as hypermedia.

Hyperlink: Electronic link providing direct access from a hypertext in an HTML document to another document or am
object in the same document.

Source Code: Contains instructions about the layout and structure of the web page.

Working of a web page

Requests for web page

User Web Browser Web Server Source
Code
- Source code of a web page is written using a web development tool.

- A request is made by the user for this web page by typing its URL in the browser.

-The web browser transfers the request to the web server.

-The request gets processed by the web server. Web page is located and sent back to the browser.

-Browser interprets the file and displays it.

Web Browser

Web Browser: Software application through which one searches and accesses info on WWW. Google chrome, internet
explorer, etc.

GUI Based Browser: GUI-Graphical User Interface. GUI based browser is designed to render content in the form of
pictures, audios, videos, animations and text. These browsers demand a large amount of bandwidth and CPU resources
b rendering high quality content. Eg: Google chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE), Opera, Apple Safari.

Text Based Browser: Text based browser provides access to the web in text mode only. Demand low bandwidth as they
don’t require more CPU resources for text content. Especially useful in speech synthesis. Eg: Lynx.

Web Address (URL)

Uniform Resource Locator denotes the global address of web documents and web resources. Is similar to a Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI).

Example url: https://www.india.gov.in/india-glance/states-india

The Scheme: First part of the web address also known as protocol identifier. Scheme in example url is https. Other types
of schemes are ftp(file transfer protocol), mailto.

The Host: Host typically starts with “www”, indicating the world wide web. Tells the browser where the site is located on
the internet.

The Domain: Unique name given to each website. Consists of two parts, one is the name of the domain, other is the
domain extension. D.E. tells which organization or country the website belongs to. Domain extensions are monitored by
ICANN. Example: “.gov”, “.com”. The Domain Name System (DNS) serves as a directory for the web by locating and
addressing devices in a worldwide network. Domain in the example url is india.gov.in

The Path: Last part of url. Tells the browser regarding the file to be used from the domain directory.
Path in example url is india-glance/states-india

Domain Name extensions:

Commercial- .com International Organizations- .int

Governmental- .gov Network- .net

Organization- .org Educational- .edu

Information- .info Business- .biz

US Military- .mil Asia Pacific Region- .asia

Mobile Devices- .mobi Air transport industry- .aero

HTML

Stands for HyperText Markup Language. Complete code package allowing the user to create web pages that contain
both text and graphics.

Hypertext: Refers to the combination of text and graphic images.

Markups: Special symbols or characters in an HTML file, known as Tags.

Markup languages: Designed to create an appropriate market scheme for an electronic document or web page.

Protocols

Specific rules that determine how data should be transferred over the networks, compressed and presented on the
screen known as Protocols.

TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. Defining conventions for the communication between
computers over the internet. Two layer program. Higher Layer (TCP) manages the breaking down and assembling of the
data, lower layer (IP) is responsible for the accurate delivery of the data over the internet.

-Information we send through the internet is broken down into packets by TCP using the technique of Packet Switching.

-IP is responsible for sending those packets to the right address by assigning them a sequence number. Packets are sent
to a local Internet Service Provider (ISP).

-Packets travel through multiple levels of networks, computers and communication lines before reaching the
destination. When it reaches, TCP with the help of packet switching again assembles the packets into a single message.

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol determines how different programs exchange data over the internet. Standard
protocol used by the World Wide Web. Responsible for accessing hypertext documents on the World Wide Web. Defines
how messages are formatted and transmitted, what actions the web servers and browsers should take in response to
various commands.

HTTPS: Used for secure communication over a computer network. Encrypts the data using Transport Layer Security (TLS)
certificate or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. Established a secured connection for data transmission between the
server and the browser.

Blogs

Easy to create website that allows users to share their thoughts with the world. Types of Blogs: Personal Blog, Company
Blog, Non Profit blog, politics blog, news and views blog, microblog.