Putting It All Together

Putting It All Together

Now you know a tremendous amount about the Internet. You know that when you type a URL into a browser, the following steps occur:

* The browser breaks the URL into 3 parts:
1. The protocol ("http")
2. The server name ("stuff.dewsoftoverseas.com")
3. The file name ("web-server.htm")
* The browser communicates with a name server to translate the server name, "stuff.dewsoftoverseas.com", into an IP Address, which it uses to connect to that server machine.
* The browser then forms a connection to the Web server at that IP address on port 80.
* Following the HTTP protocol, the browser sends a GET request to the server, asking for the file "http://stuff.dewsoftoverseas.com/web-server.htm". [Note that cookies may be sent from browser to server with the GET request -- see How Cookies Work for details.]
* The server sends the HTML text for the Web page to the browser. [Note that cookies may also be sent from server to browser, in the header for the page -- see How Cookies Work for details.]
* The browser reads the HTML tags, and formats the page onto your screen.