Unit-1

Introduction to Web Technologies

History of Internet and Web

 The Internet was introduced in 1969 by American Agency ARPA (Advanced Research Project
Agency)
 The initial name of Internet was ARPANET.
 ARPANET started sharing the resources of computer by using TELNET protocol.
 In 1975 Vint Cerf develop TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol).
 In 1980, the NSF (National Science Foundation) founded the TCP/IP protocol.
 In 1989, Tim Berners Lee proposed concept of WWW (World Wide Web)
 In 1991, Tim Berners Lee introduced HTML and Web Browser.
 In 1991, First website introduced by Tim Berners Lee using three main elements.
1. HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)
2. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
3. URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
First Website: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Working of Internet
Although the physical network connections, the hardware communication devices and the
software communication protocols are required for communication across the Internet, the
application software provides useful functionalities.
In a network application, two application programs participate in any communication: one
application initiates communication and the other accepts it. This is known as the Client-Server
interaction. This is the methodology used for internet communication.

Client-Server
Client and Server are two applications involved in communication. These components work
together over a network. It involves the client requesting serve from the server. The Server provides
the requested service.
The typical features of the Client are:
 It is front-end of an application.
 It manages user-interface portion.
 It validates data entered by the user.
 It dispatches requests to server program.
The typical features of the Server are:
 Performs a back-end task.
 Receives requests from clients.
 Executes database retrievals and updates.
 Manages data integrity.
 Dispatches response to clients.
 Web Browsers
A Web browser is a software program that is used to access the World Wide Web (WWW).
It allows users to view Web pages and navigate between them.
Examples of Web Browsers are: Mozilla, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome,
Netscape etc.
Web Browsers are known as Universal Clients because they act as the common Client for all
Web-based applications. They are the Web Clients that request services from a Web Server, which
is located somewhere on the Internet or Intranet.

Server Program & Server System

Generally, the term `Server' refers to a program that waits for a request and provides service.
However, a computer that runs many such Server programs is also known as a Server.
Computers that have fast CPUs, large memories and powerful operating systems are also
called Server Machines (or Server Systems or Server Computers).
―A Server is the program that provides Service to a client".

Working of Server

A server offers one or more Services to clients. By default, it does not do any processing until a client
sends in a request. It waits for a client to make a request. This is known as `listening mode of the server.
A typical client server interaction happens as follows:
1. The client sends a request for a server.
2. On receiving a request, the service assigns one of the threads in the pool to process the
task and continues to wait for further request.
3. The thread executes the code for the requested service.
4. After execution, it sends the response back to the client.
5. It then returns to the thread pool.

Figure: Working of Server

World Wide Web (WWW)
The World Wide Web (WWW) is an information sharing model that allows accessing
information over the medium of the Internet. It is the collection of electronic documents that are
linked together. These electronic documents are known as `Web Pages'. A collection of related Web
Pages is known as a `Web Site.
A Web Site is residing on Server computers that are located in around the world.
Information on the WWW is always accessible, from anywhere in the world.
The basic architecture is characterized by a Web Browser that displays information content
and Web Server that transfer's information to the client. This architecture depends on three key
standards for creating, publishing, and finding Web documents on the Web:
HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language for creating and editing document content.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator for locating resource on the Internet.
HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to transfer the data.
HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language
HTML is the authoring language used to create documents on the WWW. HTML makes
documents readable across variety of computing platforms.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

URL is the unique address that identifies each web page or a resource on the Internet. It
indicates where the web pages are stored on the Internet. URL is the standard way of addressing
resources on the Internet that are part of WWW.
It supplies the Internet Address of a resource on the WWW, alone with protocol by which
the resource is accessed. URLs are used by Web Browsers to connect to a specific server and to get
a specific document or page on the Web.

The URL looks like

Protocol://ServerDomainName/Path
Examples
http://www.google.com

Protocol Resource
http://192.168.10.1/download

Protocol IP address of the Resource

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol
Web browsers and Web Servers communicate with each other using the HTTP. It is a simple
protocol, which standardizes the way requests are sent and processed. This allows different Clients
to communicate with any vendor’s server without compatibility problems.
HTTP is an application-level protocol of the TCP/IP suite, which is used to deliver virtually
all files and other data on WWW.
It is used to transmit resources that are identified by URL. The most common kinds of
resources can be a file, but it can also be dynamically generated content, which is the result of
execution of a script or an application on the server.
Features of the HTTP protocol:
 Simple request-response model-based protocol.
 Application layer protocol built on TCP/IP.
 Plain-text protocol (non-secure)
 Stateless protocol
 Does not define how network connection is initiated or managed
 Standardized
HTTP Request-Response
HTTP is a simple Request-Response protocol. A HTTP Client, such as a Web Browser
initiates a request by establishing a TCP/IP connection to a particular port on a remote host. A
HTTP Server listening on that port waits for the Client to send a request, upon receiving the request,
the server send back a response.

Figure 1.2: HTTP Request-Response

1. A HTTP Client initiates a connection to the Web Server.
2. Once the connection is established, it sends a Request message to the Server.
3. To this message, the server returns a response.
HTTP Request
The HTTP Request has the following message format for transferring entities: A request
line, zero or more header lines, A blank line which separates the headers from the message body.
The request line of the HTTP request includes:
 The method to be applied on the resource.
 The identifier of the resource.
 The Protocol version in use.
The method filled in request line of HTTP indicates the method to be performed on the object
identified by the URL. Some methods are: GET, POST and HEAD.
GET: The GET method is most frequently used method. It is used by default to GET static content.
The method can also be used to submit data from a HTML Web Page to the Server. In GET
method, the data submitted will be sent as a part of the URL. Hence, in GET method:
 Parameters are encoded and passed along with the URL.
 Usually, parameters are passed as name-value pair.
 There is a physical restriction on the size of it being sent.
POST: A POST method is used to send data as a part of the HTTP message body. In Certain cases,
the Client may need to send megabytes of information. In these situations, POST method is the right
choice.
A POST request passes all its data of unlimited length, directly as a part of its HTTPrequest
body. The exchange is invisible to client. The URL does not contain the data submitted.
Consequently, POST requests cannot be book marked or emailed or in some cases, even reloaded.
Hence, confidential information sent to the Server, such as the credit card number, should be
sent via post method.
HEAD: The HEAD method is similar to GET method, except that it asks the server to return only
the Response headers and not the content. This method is useful for client to check the
characteristics of the resource without actually downloading it, thus saving bandwidth. HTTP
Clients usually use the HEAD method when they do not need the files contents.
HEAD is used for the following purposes:
 To determine the document's size.
 To know the document's modification time.
 To know general availability of a Web Page.
HTTP Response
In response to a HTTP Request sent by a HTTP Client, the server sends a HTTP Response.
The HTTP Response to requests is usually a program output and not a static file. The first line of a
Response message is a status line. It consists of
 The protocol version
 Numeric status code
 Description of the status code
HTTP status code: The response status line contains the status of processing of the HTTPrequest.
In case of success, it will contain the status code 200 and description ―OK". The status line in this
case will be: In case of error, the server sends an appropriate error code back to the Client. The
HTTP error codes are standardized. Some of the commonly found error codes: The error or success
codes of the HTTP response are standardized in the following manner:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK

Page 5
 HTTP/1.0 404 Page Not Found
HTTP/1.0 500 Internal Server Error
1XX Indicates informational message only
2XX Indicates success of some kinds.
3XX Redirects the Client to another URL.
4XX Indicates an error on Client's port.
5XX Indicates an error on Server's port
HTTP Response Headers: The Response must contain header line describing the following.
 MIME-type of the data being sent in response.
 Date and Time stamp.
 Content size etc.
The HTTP Response message body contains the required data.
1.2 Web Servers
A Web Server is a server program running on a computer whose purpose is to serve Web
Pages to another computer when required. Every computer on the Internet that contains a Web site
will have a Web Server program.
The most common use of web servers is to host websites, but there are other uses such as
gaming, data storage, running enterprise applications, handling email, FTP, or other web uses.
Many generic web servers also support server-side scripting using Active Server Pages
(ASP), PHP, or other scripting languages. This means that the behavior of the web server can be
scripted in separate files, while the actual server software remains unchanged. Usually, this
function is used to create HTML documents dynamically ("on-the-fly") as opposed to returning
static documents.
Examples of Web Servers:
1. Apache Web Server
2. Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
3. XAMPP (Bundle server)
4. WAMP (Bundle server)

1.2.1 Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server commonly referred to as Apache, is a web server program not
able for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web (WWW). It became the first
web server software to exceed the 100 million web site mile stone. Typically, Apache is run on a
Unix-like Operating system, and was developed for use on Linux.
Apache is developed and maintained by an Open community of developers under the
support and approval of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). The application is available for
wide variety of operating system, including UNIX, Free BDS, Solaris, Linux, Novel Netware, OSX,
Microsoft Windows, OS/2 etc., Released under the Apache license, Apache is open-source
software.
The main design goal of Apache is not to be the fastest Web server, Apache does have
performance similar to other \high-performance" Web Servers. Instead of implementing a single
architecture Apache provide a variety of Multi Processing Modules (MPMs) which allow Apache to
run process-based, where compromises in performance need to be made, and the design of Apache
is to reduce latency and increase throughput, relative to simply handling more requests, thus
ensuring consistent and reliable processing or requests within reasonable time frames.
Features of Apache:
  It implemented as compiled modules which extend the core functionality, thus the range
from server-side programming support to authentication scheme.
 Password-protected pages for a multitude of users (It supports password authentication and
digital certificate authentication).
 Customized error pages.
 Display of code in numerous levels of HTML, and the capability to determine at what level
the browser can accept the content.
 Virtual hosting allows one Apache installation to serve many different actual websites.
 Usage and error logs in multiple and customizable formats
 Directory Index directives to multiple files.
 URL aliasing or rewriting with no fixed limit
 Robustness and security

Architecture of the Apache Web Server

1.2.2 Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)

It is the second most popular Web Server software. It consists of Services including File
Transfer Protocol (FTP), Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP) and others that enable a Windows machine to manage Websites. The latest version (IIS
7.6) also includes various modules for security, logging compression and diagnostics.
Because of IIS is provided for Windows systems only, the choice to use IIS necessitates the
choice of a Windows Server and therefore increases running costs. Windows is also prone to more
malware attacks, and has a reputation as a less secure server option.
But this presents a problem if you'd like to develop and even deploy your PHP-driven website on a
Windows server running Microsoft's IIS web server. In recent years, Microsoft, in collaboration
with Zend Technologies Ltd., has made great strides towards boosting both the stability and
performance of PHP running on both Windows and IIS.

Features:
 IIS has a modular architecture. Modules, also called extensions, can be added or removed
individually so that only modules required for specific functionality have to be installed.
  Security Module: Used to perform many tasks related to security in the requesting-
processing pipeline (Authentication Scheme, URL authentication)
 Content Module: Used to perform tasks related to content in the requesting-processing
pipeline (Such as processing requests for static pages, returning default page etc.,)
 Compression Module: Used to perform tasks related to compression in the requesting-
processing pipeline (Such as compression responses, performing pre-compression of static
content.)
 Caching Module: Used to perform tasks related to caching in the requesting-processing
pipeline (Such as storing processed information in the memory on the server and using
cached content in subsequent request for the same resource.)
 Logging and Diagnostics Module: Used to perform tasks related to Logging and Diagnostics
in the requesting-processing pipeline (Such as passing information and processing status to
HTTP.sys for logging, reporting events, and tracking requests currently executing in worker
processes.)
 IIS 7.5 includes additional security features: Client-certificate mapping, IP security, Request
filtering, URL authentication.

What is a Domain Name?

 A domain name is the address of your website that people type in the browser’s URL bar to visit
your website. In other words, if your website was a house, then your domain name would be its
address.
 The Internet is basically a giant network of computers connected to each other through cables. To
easily identify them, each computer is assigned a series of numbers called IP Addresses. This IP
address is a combination of numbers separated with dots. Typically, IP addresses look like this:
66.249.66.1
 Computers have no problem identifying and remembering these numbers. However, humans can’t
remember and use these numbers to connect to websites on the internet. To solve this problem,
domain names were invented.
 A domain name can have words which makes it easy to remember website addresses. Now if you
wanted to visit a website on the internet, you don’t need to type a string of numbers. Instead, you
can type in an easy to remember domain name, for example, facebook.com.

What is web hosting?

 Web hosting is the place where all the files of your website live. It is like the home of your
website where it actually lives.
 A good way to think about this is if the domain name was the address of your house, then web
hosting is the actual house that address points to.
 All websites on the internet need web hosting. When someone enters your domain name in a
browser, the domain name is translated into the IP address of your web hosting company’s
computer.
 This computer contains your website’s files, and it sends those files back to the users’ browsers.
Web hosting companies specialize in storing and serving websites. They offer different types of
hosting plans to their customers.
How Domain Names and Web Hosting are Related?
 Domain names and web hosting are two different services. However, they work together to make
websites possible. Basically a domain name system is like a massive address book that is
constantly updated. Behind each domain name, there is an address of the web hosting service
storing the website’s files.
  Without domain names, it will not be possible for people to find your website and without web
hosting you cannot build a website.
 Domain names and web hosting are two different things; however, they’re closely connected. You
need both a domain name and a web hosting account to create a website. This means that you
can’t build a website without any one of them.
 To get started, you can choose a domain name and register it with a domain registrar company.
With most domain companies, you can register a domain name for a minimum period of 1 year.
You need to renew your domain before expiring to continue using it. Next, you can buy a hosting
plan and link it with your domain name. After that, you can install a website software (for
example, WordPress), install tools and plugins, and add content to your website.
Can I Buy Domain and Hosting from the Same Company?
 Yes, you can. You can buy a domain and a hosting account from the same company or from
different companies.
 If you buy both a domain and hosting from the same company, the setup process becomes a bit
easier as you don’t need to change the domain name settings. That is why many companies have
started offering both the services together.
 Bluehost is one of such companies that offers both domain and hosting services at a reasonable
cost. It’s offering an exclusive deal for WordPress users which provides you a free domain name
at the purchase of any WordPress hosting plan.
If you want to register a domain name from a different domain company, you can register with one of
these top domain registration companies.
 Domain.com
 GoDaddy
 NameCheap
 DreamHost

And, if you want Bluehost alternatives for web hosting, you can buy from one of the following top
hosting companies.
 SiteGround
 HostGator
 InMotion Hosting

Responsive Web Design

 Responsive Web design is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond
to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform, and orientation.
 The practice consists of a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images, and an intelligent use of CSS
media queries. As the user switches from their laptop to iPad, the website should automatically
switch to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. One may also have to
consider the settings on their devices; if they have a VPN for iOS on their iPad, for example, the
website should not block the user’s access to the page.
 In other words, the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s
preferences. This would eliminate the need for a different design and development phase for each
new gadget on the market.
 Responsive web design is about creating web pages that look good on all devices!
 A responsive web design will automatically adjust for different screen sizes and viewports.
What is Responsive Web Design?
 Responsive Web Design is about using HTML and CSS to automatically resize, hide, shrink, or
enlarge, a website, to make it look good on all devices (desktops, tablets, and phones):
Setting The Viewport
To create a responsive website, add the following <meta> tag to all your web pages:
Example
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
This will set the viewport of your page, which will give the browser instructions on how to control the
page's dimensions and scaling.

How to access Websites?

When we type a certain URL in a browser search bar, the browser requests the page from the Web server
and the Web server returns the required web page and its content to the browser. Now, it differs how the
server returns the information required in the case of static and dynamic websites.
Types of Website:
 Static Website
 Dynamic Website

Static Website: In Static Websites, Web pages are returned by the server which are prebuilt source code
files built using simple languages such as HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. There is no processing of content
on the server (according to the user) in Static Websites. Web pages are returned by the server with no
change therefore, static Websites are fast. There is no interaction with databases. Also, they are less costly
as the host does not need to support server-side processing with different languages.

Architecture of Static Website

Note: Static does not mean that it will not respond to user actions, These Websites are called static
because these cannot be manipulated on the server or interact with databases (which is the case in
Dynamic Websites).
Dynamic Website: In Dynamic Websites, Web pages are returned by the server which are processed
during runtime means they are not prebuilt web pages but they are built during runtime according to the
user’s demand with the help of server-side scripting languages such as PHP, Node.js, ASP.NET and many
more supported by the server. So, they are slower than static websites but updates and interaction with
databases are possible.
Dynamic Websites are used over Static Websites as updates can be done very easily as compared to static
websites (Where altering in every page is required) but in Dynamic Websites, it is possible to do a
common change once and it will reflect in all the web pages.
Architecture

Architecture of Dynamic Website

Difference Between Static and Dynamic Websites:

Static Website Dynamic Website

Content of Web pages cannot be Content of Web pages can be changed.
change at runtime.
No interaction with database possible. Interaction with database is possible
It is faster to load as compared to It is slower than static website.
dynamic website.
Cheaper Development costs. More Development costs.
No feature of Content Management. Feature of Content Management
System.
HTML, CSS, JavaScript is used for Server-side languages such as PHP,
developing the website. Node.js are used.
Same content is delivered every time Content may change every time the
the page is loaded. page is loaded.

Web Standards and W3C recommendations

 The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations,
full-time staff and the general public work together to develop Web standards.
 The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops international Web standards: HTML, CSS, Java
Script and many more. W3C's Web standards are called W3C Recommendations. All W3C standards are
reviewed for accessibility support by the Accessible Platform Architectures (APA) Working Group. The
W3C mission is to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines
that ensure the long-term growth of the Web.
 Web standards are rules and guidelines established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
developed to promote consistency in the design code which makes up a web page. Without getting
technical, simply it's the guideline for the mark-up language which determines how a web page. displays
in a visitor's browser window.
Protocol Governing Web:

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

o FTP stands for File transfer protocol.
o FTP is a standard internet protocol provided by TCP/IP used for transmitting the files from one
host to another.
o It is mainly used for transferring the web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as
a server for other computers on the internet.
o It is also used for downloading the files to computer from other servers.
o It provides the sharing of files.
o It is used to encourage the use of remote computers.
o It transfers the data more reliably and efficiently.

The above figure shows the basic model of the FTP. The FTP client has three components: the
user interface, control process, and data transfer process. The server has two components: the
server control process and the server data transfer process.

Advantages of FTP:
o Speed: One of the biggest advantages of FTP is speed. The FTP is one of the fastest way to
transfer the files from one computer to another computer.
o Efficient: It is more efficient as we do not need to complete all the operations to get the entire file.
o Security: To access the FTP server, we need to login with the username and password. Therefore,
we can say that FTP is more secure.
o Back & forth movement: FTP allows us to transfer the files back and forth. Suppose you are a
manager of the company, you send some information to all the employees, and they all send
information back on the same server.
Disadvantages of FTP:
o The standard requirement of the industry is that all the FTP transmissions should be encrypted.
However, not all the FTP providers are equal and not all the providers offer encryption. So, we
will have to look out for the FTP providers that provides encryption.
o FTP serves two operations, i.e., to send and receive large files on a network. However, the size
limit of the file is 2GB that can be sent. It also does not allow you to run simultaneous transfers to
multiple receivers.
o Passwords and file contents are sent in clear text that allows unwanted eavesdropping. So, it is
quite possible that attackers can carry out the brute force attack by trying to guess the FTP
password.
o It is not compatible with every system.

SMTP Protocol:

o SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.

o SMTP is a set of communication guidelines that allow software to transmit an electronic mail over
the internet is called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
o It is a program used for sending messages to other computer users based on e-mail addresses.
o It provides a mail exchange between users on the same or different computers, and it also
supports:
o It can send a single message to one or more recipients.
o Sending message can include text, voice, video, or graphics.
o It can also send the messages on networks outside the internet.
o The main purpose of SMTP is used to set up communication rules between servers. The servers
have a way of identifying themselves and announcing what kind of communication they are trying
to perform. They also have a way of handling the errors such as incorrect email address. For
example, if the recipient address is wrong, then receiving server reply with an error message of
some kind.

Components of SMTP
o First, we will break the SMTP client and SMTP server into two components such as user agent
(UA) and mail transfer agent (MTA). The user agent (UA) prepares the message, creates the
envelope and then puts the message in the envelope. The mail transfer agent (MTA) transfers this
mail across the internet.

Working of SMTP
1. Composition of Mail: A user sends an e-mail by composing an electronic mail message using a
Mail User Agent (MUA). Mail User Agent is a program which is used to send and receive mail.
The message contains two parts: body and header. The body is the main part of the message while
the header includes information such as the sender and recipient address. The header also includes
descriptive information such as the subject of the message. In this case, the message body is like a
letter and header is like an envelope that contains the recipient's address.
2. Submission of Mail: After composing an email, the mail client then submits the completed e-mail
to the SMTP server by using SMTP on TCP port 25.
3. Delivery of Mail: E-mail addresses contain two parts: username of the recipient and domain name.
For example, [email protected], where "vivek" is the username of the recipient and "gmail.com"
is the domain name.
If the domain name of the recipient's email address is different from the sender's domain name,
then MSA will send the mail to the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA). To relay the email, the MTA will
find the target domain. It checks the MX record from Domain Name System to obtain the target
domain. The MX record contains the domain name and IP address of the recipient's domain. Once
the record is located, MTA connects to the exchange server to relay the message.
4. Receipt and Processing of Mail: Once the incoming message is received, the exchange server
delivers it to the incoming server (Mail Delivery Agent) which stores the e-mail where it waits for
the user to retrieve it.
5. Access and Retrieval of Mail: The stored email in MDA can be retrieved by using MUA (Mail
User Agent). MUA can be accessed by using login and password.
How to develop Web Project?
Phase-I: Strategy
 Goals and objectives
 Team building
 Research and review
 Project proposal
Phase-II: Design and specification
 Developing concepts
 Content planning
 Rough design
 Final design
 Build prototype
 Prototype testing
Phase-III: Production or development
 Coding
Phase-IV: Testing and maintenance
 Automation testing
 Manual testing
Phase-V: Register with ISP
 Buy domain name
 Hosting
Phase-VI: Launch

Internet Services
Internet services provides a way for data to be transferred from internet servers to out computer.
To access/exchange a large amount of data such as software, audio clips, video clips, text files, other
documents, etc., we need internet services. You must use an Internet service to connect to the Internet.
Data can be sent from Internet servers to your machine via Internet service. Some of the commonly used
internet services are:

 Communication Services
 Information Retrieval Services
 File Transfer
 World Wide Web Services
 Web Services
 Directory Services
 Automatic Network Address Configuration
 Network Management Services
 Time Services
 Usenet
 Newsgroup
 Ecommerce