What is a Web Server?
Thursday, December 24, 2009

Learn Web server software overview, how to configure, how it works, apache, tomcat. Web server is a computer including a software package that provides the specific services to the client computers. Web server delivers the web pages. Every web server has an IP address and a domain name.
The server fetches the index or main page of the website and sends it to your browser. Web-based servers are used for hosting the websites. One web server can hosts thousands for one sites. But in the hosting companies there are number of the web servers for load balancing and sharing the other services. A computer can be act as a web server by installing and configuring the server software and connecting the computer to the Internet. Normally, web server computers have to be turn on (online) for almost all the day.
There are many software applications that are used as the web server like IIS, Apache web server, Tom Cat web server. A web server typically accepts thousands of the concurrent incoming requests for the specific domain, that it hosts.
In case if the server is down for any reason, the websites that are hosted on this server cannot be accessed. So the downtime is a biggest negative thing for the web hosting companies. Many hosting companies have to mention the uptime of their servers for the client’s satisfactions like 99.9 % uptime. You may have seen this percentage on many hosting companies’ websites.

The web servers serves the objects in the form of html documents, plain text, images, sounds, video and some other form of the data. Many of the data types may not be placed in the static form but they are shown on the run time by the software programs, that are installed on the web server and the CGI scripts are the most common form of these programs.
Web servers and the browsers such as internet explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Opera etc communicate with the web server by using the HTTP protocols (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). This is very effective method of requesting the data over the Internet. Web servers are in various shapes and sized and run under different operating systems like Windows, Linux, and Unix etc. They are also range differently in prices and working.
Apache Web Server
The Apache web server is the most popular and most commonly used web server today. Apache web server has many features and good functionality that appeals to the users and that’s major cause of its popularity. On the other end, Microsoft’s IIS still is struggling to complete fully with apache web server. IIS is a very good server on the NT platforms and Apache is compatible with the Linux/Unix platforms.
Another big reason for the worldwide acceptance of the Apache web server is its stability. Many big websites on the Internet has chosen Apache web server for their hosting needs. Additionally, Apache web server is a relatively fast. If your website contents are static then Apache’s working is very efficient and fast and on the other end, if you are using scripts like CGI scripts or others, it usually slows down the speed of the Apache web server.A Web server is simply a little piece of the software, it takes the file name sent in the GET command, retrieves that files and send it back to the browser.
Most servers implement some level of security on the serving process. For example login/password accessible page requires the proper login and password from the users to accept that page. Web servers have the database and login information of the entire subscriber and only a subscriber of that typical service will be able to see that page. Additionally, while doing secure transactions the web pages allows encrypted transactions between the browsers and the servers such as on the E-commerce websites and other websites where a transaction through a credit card is required.
Basic Overview How Web Server Works
A web server performs various tasks on the request from the clients. To understand the working of the web server, it is necessary to first understand that what is client and server and what is their relationship with each other. A client is a program that sends request to a server and server responds to the requests of the clients.
This generic definition covers many types of relationships between client and servers like database server & web server etc. Web server have to be connected to the internet because client computers need to access them for various needs like data, files, graphics, video and html documents access.
The client program such as browsers and typically designed for the purpose of communicating with the web servers. A browser itself has different levels of features and security. To start the communication between the client (browser) and the server, a set of rules or agreed upon way is required and that is called a protocol. To access the web pages from the server HTTP protocol is required and for the file sharing access FTP protocol is required. There are a large number of the web protocols.
A web server is configured and designed in such a way that it responds to the thousands of the concurrent incoming requests from the clients for different things like html documents, graphics, images or video etc.

Posted byranjith at 4:46 AM 0 comments  

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How to Configure a Network

In this section you will learn how to configure a network, peer to peer, client server, workstation, server, basic data communication.
Peer to Peer network model
Before configuring a computer network, you have to decide that, which networking model you require. There are two main types of network models. Peer to peer and client-server network model. In the peer to peer network model you simply use the same Workgroup for all the computers and a unique name for each computer.

Additionally, you will have to give a unique IP address of the same class A, B, or C for all the computers in your network and its related subnet mask e.g if you decide to use class A IP address for your three computers in your Peer to Peer network then your IP address/Subnet mask settings can be as follows.
Computer Name IP Address Subnet Mask Workgroup
PC1 100.100.100.1 255.0.0.0 OfficenetworkPC2 100.100.100.2 255.0.0.0 OfficenetworkPC3 100.100.100.3 255.0.0.0 Officenetwor

Please note that the above example is for only illustration purpose so you can choose any IP address, computer name and workgroup name of your interest.
For doing this right click on My Computer and then click Properties then go to the Network Identification section and set these.
In a peer to peer network all computers acts as a client because there is not centralized server. Peer to peer network is used where not security is required in the network.

If a computer fails to work then all other computers work normally in peer to peer network.
Client/Server Network Model
In the client/server network model a computer plays a centralized role and is known as a server all other computers in the network are known as clients. All client computers access the server simultaneously for files, database, docs, spreadsheets, web pages and resources like hard diver, printer, fax modem, CD/DVD ROM and others. In other words, all the client computes depends on the server and if server fails to respond or crash then networking/communication between the server and the client computes stops.
If you want to configure a client-server network model then first prepare the server. Install Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 Server from the CD on the server computer and make a domain. You can create a domain by this command on the Run “DCPROMO”. You can give this command once you install the server successfully. After you give the DCPROMO command you will be asked for a unique domain name. All the client computers will use the same unique domain name for becoming the part of this domain. This command will install the active directory on the server, DNS and other required things. A step by step wizard will run and will guide you for the rest of the steps. Make sure that a network cable is plugged in the LAN card of the server when you run the DCPROMO.exe command.
When the Active directory is properly installed on the server, restart the server. You can create network users on the server computer and also name/label the network resources like computers/printers etc.
Once you install the server successfully now come to the client computers. Install Windows 2000 professional on your all client computers. Once you install the Windows 2000 professional on the clients the next step is to make this computer (client computer) a part of the network.
Configuration Steps
1. Choose a unique name for each client computer2. Choose unique IP address for each computer and relevant.3. Use the same domain name for all client PCs.
Network/System administrators are required to do these administrative tasks on the server and client computers. Any shared resources on the network either on the server or the clients can be access through the My Network Places in the Windows 2000 platform. There is another way to connect to the shared resources by giving this command in the run \\ComputerName\SharedDriveLetter.
Network configurations steps can be implemented by right clicking the My Computer>Properties>
For giving the IP address you will have to right click on the My Network places>properties>Local Area Connection>Properties>Internet Protocols (TCP/IP)>Properties and then give the IP address and subnet mask of the same range and class for all the computers in the network.

Posted byranjith at 4:40 AM 0 comments  

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Idea Cellular Overtakes BSNL into Third Place in Mobile Customer Base

Idea Cellular is now India’s thrid largest GSM mobile operator. Idea Cellular (55.9 million customers) has overtaken BSNL (55.2 million), based on the November figures from the Cellular Operators Association of India. The GSM industry as a whole added 11 million subscribers to take the countrywide tally to 366 million.
Bhart Airtel remains as the fastest growing operator with more than 116 millio customers. Vodafone the second largest mobile operator in India with 88.6 million customers. Aircel is in fifth place with 29.4 million, followed by Reliance Telecom (14.6 million), MTNL (4.5 million) and Loop Mobile (3 million).

Posted byranjith at 3:43 AM 0 comments  

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