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Internet Computing

The document provides an overview of internet computing concepts like HTTP, URLs, cookies, sessions, and web technologies like CGI and servlets. It describes how HTTP is used to make requests and receive responses on the web and how technologies like CGI and servlets allow dynamic content and processing on the server side.

Uploaded by

narges
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© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
30 views

Internet Computing

The document provides an overview of internet computing concepts like HTTP, URLs, cookies, sessions, and web technologies like CGI and servlets. It describes how HTTP is used to make requests and receive responses on the web and how technologies like CGI and servlets allow dynamic content and processing on the server side.

Uploaded by

narges
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 42

Introduction to Internet

Computing

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

Typical Web Application


App Server

App Server

HTTP

Internet
TCP/IP

HTTP

Web Browser

Ethernet

HTTP

Web Browser

Web Server
HTML Doc

HTTP

DBMS

CGI, Servlet,
JSP

Tier1

Tier2

Tier3

Presentation layer: CGI, Servlet, JSP, ASP


Business logic layer: EJB, COM+, CORBA

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

Hypertext Transaction Protocol


HTTP is an application protocol that allows

Web clients and servers to communicate


Main function of HTTP is to download HTTP

documents specified by URLs


HTTP is built on top of TCP/IP
HTTP is stateless
HTTP is Webs version of RPC
Current dominant version is HTTP 1.0

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

HTTP Request
A Web client sends an HTTP request to a

Web server specified by a URL


An HTTP request has a request line, a few

request header fields, and an entity body


<method> <resource ID> <HTTP version>
[<header> : <value>]

[<header> : <value>]
(blank line)
[Entity body]
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

HTTP Request Example


GET /path/file.html HTTP/1.0
Accept: text/html
Accept: audio/x
User-agent: MacWeb

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

HTTP Response
Web server processes the HTTP request,

and sends back an HTTP response


HTTP response has a response header
line, a few response header fields, and an
entity body
<HTTP Version> <result code> [<explanation>]
[<header> : <value>]

[<header> : <value>]
(blank line)
[Entity body]
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

HTTP Response Example


HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: NCSA/1.3
Mime_version: 1.0
Content_type: text/html
Content_length: 2000
<HTML>

</HTML>
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions


MIME was designed to support extensible

mechanisms for transmitting multimedia email


HTTP uses MIME to specify its contents type
Common HTTP content-types

Text/html

Text/plain

Image/gif

Image/jpeg

Video/mpeg

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

Composition of a URL
A sample URL may look like
http://www.server.dom/app/resource?name=J&age=18

http://www.server.dom identifies a Web server


/app/resource identifies a resource of a Web

application app on the Web server


The substring after the ? mark is the query string.

It was originally designed to support database


queries. But it is mainly used to pass name/value
pairs to the Web server

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

GET
GET is mainly for retrieving a file from a Web

server
When you enter a URL into the address field of a

Web browser, or when you click on a hyperlink,


the Web browser issues a GET HTTP request to
the target HTTP server
The URL for a GET may contain a query-string,

which may be used to pass arguments


The documents retrieved by GETs are usually

cached

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

10

GET Example
Submit data from a form
<html>
<body>
<form method="get" action="http://server/app/input">
Enter your name: <input type="text" name="user">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
</body>
</html>

After entering Ada and clicking on Submit, URL becomes


http://server/app/input?user=Ada

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

11

Drawbacks of GET
Even though GET is the default HTTTP

method, it should not be used to submit


form data for two reasons

All user data goes to URL query string

It is hard to control how much data a user will


submit
All user data will be submitted through a
query_string environment variable, which has
limited memory capacity
If user data is larger than environment memory
capacity, the data may be truncated, or the server
may crash

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

12

POST
POST is similar to GET, but user data is

transmitted to the Web server in the entity


body. The server processor (like CGI) can
read these data through System.in
It is safer to use POST to submit data to a

Web server
If POST is used, environment variable

query_string will not be set on the server

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

13

How to Support a Session?


Typical e-commerce applications need to

maintain user data for a user session


HTTP is stateless: successive GET/POST

calls dont share information through HTTP:


a socket is opened to connect to the server,
submit data, process data, and return data.
Then socket connection terminates
Two basic patches to solve the problem

Hidden form fields

Cookie

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

14

Hidden Form Fields


Inside an HTTP form, some data fields are

declared and made invisible:

<input type="hidden" name="x" value="100">

Session data is stored in hidden fields


Web browsers submit form data to Web

server, the server set value of some hidden


fields of the following form, and send the
new form back to the Web browser
Main problem: insecure. Hackers can use
View Source to read the values of the
hidden fields, and modify them
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

15

Cookies
A cookie is a small piece of session data to

be stored on clients machine: x=1, y=hi


After a Web browser submits data to a Web

server, the server may create a sequence of


cookies in form of a sequence of
name=value pairs. Server may set the max
age of the cookies
The cookies are returned to the Web

browser as part of the response, and saved


in files on the client machine
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

16

Cookies
When the client makes the next request to

the same Web server, all previous cookies


sent over by this server in this session will
be automatically sent back to the server
When the client shuts down the Web
browser, or if a cookies life has come to the
end, the cookie will be deleted from the
client machine
Main problems

Internet Computing

Insecure
Inefficient
Dr. Lixin Tao

17

Web Server Extensions


Web server by itself is only responsible to serve

file requests
CGI and Servlet are simple extensions to Web

servers
If a request needs data processing, the Web

server will forward the request to a CGI or servlet


CGI or servlet processes the input data, and

dynamically generates an HTML file to let the


Web server send back to the client Web browser
CGI and Servlet are two standard interfaces for

Web server to communicate with Web extensions


Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

18

Common Gateway Interface (CGI)


Each Web server has its own way of

identifying requests for CGI applications

URL contains /cgi-bin

The target application has extension .cgi

For each CGI request, the Web server sets

values for a standard set of environment


variables including query_string, server_port,
request_method, content_length, and remote_host

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

19

Common Gateway Interface


A CGI application is a script or

executable that reads request entity


body through standard system input
stream, reads value of environment
variables, composes an HTML file, and
sends the file through standard system
output stream
Main problem: Each CGI request starts
a new server process, slow and not
scalable
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

20

Servlets
Servlets

Like applets running in a container, but


Execute on server's machine, supported by most
Web servers

Communication with client via HTTP protocol


Client sends HTTP request
Server receives request, servlets process it
Results returned (HTML document, images,
binary data)

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

21

The Servlet API


Servlet interface

Implemented by all servlets

Many methods invoked automatically by servlet


container
Similar to applets (paint, init, start, etc.)

abstract classes that implement Servlet


GenericServlet (javax.servlet)
HTTPServlet (javax.servlet.http)

My example extends HTTPServlet

Methods
void init( ServletConfig config )
Automatically called, argument provided
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

22

The Servlet API


Methods
ServletConfig getServletConfig()
Returns reference to config object, gives access
to config info

void service ( ServletRequest


request, ServletResponse response
)
Key method in all servlets
Provide access to input and output streams

Read from and send to client

void destroy()
Cleanup method, called when servlet exiting

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

23

HttpServlet Class
HttpServlet

Base class for Web-based servlets


Overrides method service
Request methods:

GET - retrieve HTML documents or image

POST - send server data from HTML form

Methods doGet and doPost respond to GET


and POST
Called by service
Receive HttpServletRequest and
HttpServletResponse objects

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

24

HttpServletRequest Interface
HttpServletRequest interface
Object passed to doGet and doPost
Extends ServletRequest
Methods
String getParameter( String name )
Returns value of parameter name

Enumeration getParameterNames()
Returns names of parameters

String[] getParameterValues( String name


)
Returns array of strings containing values of a parameter

Cookie[] getCookies()
Returns array of Cookie objects, can identify client

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

25

HttpServletResponse Interface
HttpServletResponse
Object passed to doGet and doPost
Extends ServletResponse
Methods
void addCookie( Cookie cookie )
Add Cookie to header of response to client

ServletOutputStream getOutputStream()
Gets byte-based output stream, send binary data to client

PrintWriter getWriter()
Gets character-based output stream, send text to client

void setContentType( String type )


Specify MIME type of the response
Helps display data

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

26

A Servlet for Tripling Integers


The client enters an integer in a text field,

and then clicks on button Triple this


integer
The Web browser sends a POST request to

the specified Web server with the integer


Web server invokes the servlet to triple the

integer, and passes back the response from


the servlet

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

27

Running Triple Servlet

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

28

Triple.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Triple an Integer with a Servlet</title>
</head>
<body>
<form method="post"
action="http://localhost:8080/servlet/TriplerServlet">
<input type="submit" value="Triple this integer: ">
<input type="text" name="number" value="0" size="4">
</form>
</body>
</html>
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

29

TriplerServlet.java
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;
import java.io.*;
public class TriplerServlet extends HttpServlet {
public void doPost(HttpServletRequest request,
HttpServletResponse response)
throws ServletException, IOException {
String value = request.getParameter("number");
int n = Integer.parseInt(value);
response.setContentType("text/html");
PrintWriter output = response.getWriter();
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

30

TriplerServlet.java
output.println("<html>");
output.println("<title>Tripler Answer</title>");
output.println("<br><br><h2>");
output.println("3 x " + n + " = " + 3*n);
output.println("</h2>\n</html>");
output.close();
}
}

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

31

HttpSession
In addition to using cookies to maintain

session data on client machines, servlets


also support HttpSession
Each client session can be associated with

a unique HttpSession on the Web server,


which is basically a hash table of
name/value pairs

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

32

Observations
CGI and servlet are both simple extensions

to Web servers to provide dynamic Web


pages
CGI and servlet are not suitable to build

peer-to-peer distributed systems


Since CGI and servlet invocations go

through Web server, efficiency is low

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

33

Remote Method Invocations (RMI)


Remote Method Invocation (RMI)

Allows remote method calls


Objects in different programs can communicate
Method calls appear as normal

Based on Remote Procedure Calls (RPC)


Developed in 1980's
Allows procedural program (like C) to call function on
another computer
Performs networking and data marshalling (packaging
arguments and return values)
Not compatible with objects
Interface Definition Language required - describe functions

Internet Computing

RMI is Java's implementation of RPC


Dr. Lixin Tao

34

Java Server Pages


Java Server Pages (JSP) is based on

servlets, but greatly simplifies the


development process
A JSP page is an HTML file, with
embedded scripts for filling in dynamic data
Upon first client invocation, a JSP file is
compiled on the Web server into a servlet
Debugging for JSP scripts is harder
While JSP mainly uses Java as script
language, Active Server Pages (ASP) of
Microsoft uses VBScript, VB, and C#

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

35

A Dynamic Hello World JSP

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

36

Response Page

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

37

hellouser.jsp
<%@ page import="hello.NameHandler" %>
<jsp:useBean id="mybean" scope="page" class="hello.NameHandler" />
<jsp:setProperty name="mybean" property="*" />
<html>
<head><title>Hello, User</title></head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" background="background.gif">
<%@ include file="dukebanner.html" %>
<table border="0" width="700">
<tr>
<td width="150"> &nbsp; </td>
<td width="550">

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

38

hellouser.jsp
<h1>My name is Duke. What's yours?</h1>
</td></tr>
<tr>
<td width="150" &nbsp; </td>
<td width="550">
<form method="get">
<input type="text" name="username" size="25"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
<input type="reset" value="Reset">
</td></tr>
</form>
</table>
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

39

hellouser.jsp
<%
if ( request.getParameter("username") != null ) {
%>
<%@ include file="response.jsp" %>
<%
}
%>
</body>
</html>

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

40

response.jsp
<table border="0" width="700">
<tr>
<td width="150"> &nbsp; </td>
<td width="550">

<h1>Hello, <jsp:getProperty name="mybean" property="username" />!


</h1>

</td>
</tr>
</table>

Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

41

NameHandler.java
package hello;
public class NameHandler {
private String username;
public NameHandler() {
username = null;
}
public void setUsername( String name ) {
username = name;
}
public String getUsername() {
return username;
}
}
Internet Computing

Dr. Lixin Tao

42

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