HTTP Server Concepts

HTTP, Protocol to Exchange Documents

• HTTP is transfer protocol
• Cornerstone of WWW
• Client request: HTTP://www.ibm.com/public/home.htm to address document to be retrieved
• Address, called URL, consists of three parts:
  • http:// is the protocol
  • www.ibm.com is the TCP/IP domain name of the serving WWW system
  • /public/home.htm is the directory/file name of the requested document (sometimes called URI).
• Documents can include further URL's, so called hyperlinks
• Browsers do not only allow HTTP protocol, but others like FTP (ftp://), Gopher (gopher://) and others.

HTI010