Introduction to Web Servers

How does a Web server work

Emmanuel Eilu

Faculty of Computing and IT

Makerere University
 How a web server works
Thebrowser (like internet explorer) dissects the
URL into three parts:
1. The protocol ("http")
2. The server name ("www.eilu.com")
3. The file name (“MIS-7212.htm")
• The browser communicated with DSN to
translate the server name
www.eilu.com/MIS-7212.htm. into an IP
Address (say-226.22.61.137.),

Emmanuel Eilu (Christ is Lord!)

which it uses to connect to the server machine.
The TCP then formed a connection to the server at
that IP address on port 80.
Using the HTTP protocol, the browser sents a GET
request to the server, asking for the file
"http://www.eilu.com/MIS-7212.HTM.’’
The server then sent the HTML text for the Web
page to the browser
The browser read the HTML tags and formatted
the page onto your screen

Emmanuel Eilu (Christ is Lord!)

Emmanuel Eilu (Christ is Lord!)
Electronic Mail
Invented by Ray Tomlinson in 1972.
Is one of the most commonly used
services on the Internet, allowing
people to send messages to one or
more recipients.

Emmanuel Eilu (Christ is Lord!)

How it works
When you send message, MUA(Mail User
Agent ) formats the message in Internet e-mail
format and uses the Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol (SMTP) (is a de facto standard for
electronic mail transmissions across the
Internet) to send the message to the local mail
transfer agent (MTA) (a computer program or software agent that
transfers electronic mail messages from one computer to another.) used to

manage e-mail.
The MTA looks at the destination address
provided in the SMTP protocol say okot@e.com

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Okot is the username of the recipient,
then e.com is a domain name.
The MTA looks up this domain name in
the Domain Name System.
MTA then delivers the email to the
MDA (Mail Delivery Agent),
There are two main protocols used for
retrieving email on an MDA:

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POP3 (Post Office Protocol), the
older of the two, which is used for
retrieving email and, in certain cases,
leaving a copy of it on the server.
IMAP (Internet Message Access
Protocol), which is used for
coordinating the status of emails
(read, deleted, moved) across multiple
email clients. With IMAP, a copy of
every message is saved on the server.

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To keep everyone from checking other
users' emails, MDA is protected by a
user name called a login and by a
password.
Retrieving mail is done using a
software program called an MUA (Mail
User Agent).
MUA is a program installed on the user's
system, it is called an email client (such as
Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook,
Eudora Mail, Incredimail or Lotus Notes).

Emmanuel Eilu (Christ is Lord!)