CUIT 211: Web Design and

Internet Computing

Mr Mastara
Office: E7
pmastara@cut.ac.zw
Platforms
Activities
Tools?
So what are we saying?
 To be specific?
Languages: Platforms:
• HTML(5) • Netbeans / Eclipse
• JavaScript /DreamWeaver /
• PHP SublimeText / Notepad++
• CSS • WordPress
• MySQL • Joomla
• AngularJS • Phonegap / Cordova
• XAMPP
Introduction

The Internet in a Nutshell

 Lecture Outline
• Types of addresses used • Dynamic Content
on the Internet • The Internet vs. Intranet
• URL • Web Page Security
• Anatomy of a URL – Spam
– Complex URL – Phishing
– Query – Cross Site Scripting
– Parameters – Injection Flaws
– Path • Solutions
• WWW – DoS
• Protocols – Input Validation
– Improper Error handling
• Domain Name
• Client Server Architecture • Top web-development
of the Internet languages
• Search engines
 Introduction
• Internet is a network of interconnected devices
that is now global.
• Internet born in 1969.
 Types of Addresses used on the Internet
• Media Access Control (MAC) addresses in the network access layer
– Associated with network interface card (NIC)
– 48 bits or 64 bits
• IP addresses for the network layer
– 32 bits for IPv4, and 128 bits for IPv6
– E.g., 128.3.23.3
• IP addresses + ports for the transport layer
– E.g., 128.3.23.3:80
• Domain names for the application/human layer
– E.g., www.purdue.edu
– This is the URL.
 URL
• Stands for Uniform Resource Locator
• URL - Universal Resource Locator – Represents the
name of a file on a remote computer
– http://www.msu.edu/~urquhar5/tour/active.html
• The 3 basic parts of a URL are:
– Protocol
– Domain Name
– Path
 Domain Name
www.learnthenet.com

Definition:
• A domain name is a unique reference that identifies a
web site on the internet.
• You can think of it as a (unique) name that is used to
identify a particular host on the internet.
It can thus be viewed as providing a higher level
description of an IP address.
• www -- This indicates a page on the World Wide Web.
(Optional)
• learnthenet.com -- The domain name
• www.learnthenet.com -- Together, these indicate the
web server name.
 Domain Name cont..
doepud.co.uk
• A domain name consists of one or more parts,
technically called labels, that are conventionally
concatenated, and delimited by dots, such as
example.com.
• The right-most label conveys the top-level domain;
for example, the domain name www.example.com
belongs to the top-level domain com.
 Sub-domain:
• It is a sub-division of the main domain name.
• The hierarchy of domains descends from right to
left; each label to the left specifies a subdivision,
or subdomain of the domain to the right.
• The label example specifies a subdomain of
the com domain, and www is a sub domain of
example.com. This tree of subdivisions may have up
to 127 levels.
• The top-level domain (TLD), in Doepud's case is uk.
• The co part is shorthand for commercial and
combined .co.uk is called a second-level domain
(SLD).
 Domain Name System
• Here’s a list of some common top-level domain names.
• Or __ By country:
 Path
web-at-a-glance/url-anatomy/page_01.php
• web-at-a-glance -- This is a directory or folder on
the web server that contains a group of related web
pages within the website.
• url-anatomy -- This is a folder inside the "web-at-a-
glance" folder
• page_01.php -- This is a web page inside the folder.
(The same file might be named page_01.html)
 Protocols
• Agreements between sender and receiver regarding how
data are sent and interpreted
– In other words, : Interprets what is to be done and how.
• Services such as Telnet, FTP, Internet gaming, and e-mail
are all part of the Internet.
• All Web pages are written in the hyper-text markup
language (HTML), which works in conjunction with HTTP.
• Interaction b/w Browser and Server is governed by the HTTP
protocol (Request/Response Tx)
 HTTP
• Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the method used to
transfer Web pages to your computer.
• It takes care of the communication between a web server and a
web browser.
• World Wide Web uses HTTP Servers, better known as web server
• Receive HTTP type request and send requested file in packets.
• It is used for sending requests from a web client (a browser) to a
web server, returning web content (web pages) from the server
back to the client.

• HTTPS - Secure HTTP:

– Takes care of secure communication between a web server and a web
browser.
– It typically handles credit card transactions and other sensitive data.
Complex URL Example
 Complex URL Cont.. Query
• A query is commonly found in the URL of dynamic pages
(ones which are generated from database or user-generated
content) and is represented by a question mark followed by
one or more parameters.
• The query directly follows the domain name, path or port
number.
• For example, have a look at this URL which was generated by
Google when doing a search for the word URL:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=url&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-
8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a.

• The query part is ?q=url&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-

8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a.
 Complex URL Cont.. Parameters
• Parameters are snippets of information found in the
query string of a URL.
• With reference to the Google query above, the
parameters follow the question mark and are separated
by an ampersand (&) character so they can be
understood individually and used to display content on
that page. .
• The parameters are:
– q=url
– ie=utf-8
– oe=utf-8
– aq=t
– rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official
– client=firefox-a
 Complex URL Cont…Path

• It typically refers to a file or directory on the web

server, e.g./directory/file.php.
• Sometimes the file name won't be specified,
e.g.http://doepud.co.uk/blog/ so a web browser
will automatically look inside the /blog/ folder for a
file called index or default.
• If neither can be found, a 404 Not Found error will
usually be returned by the server.
 WWW
• A system of Internet servers that support specially
formatted documents.
• The documents are formatted in a markup language
called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that
supports links to other documents, as well as graphics,
audio, and video files.
• Not all Internet servers are part of the World Wide
Web.
• Applications called Web browsers make it easy to
access the World Wide Web.

Question: Which came first - Internet or WWW?

 Client server architecture
• A network architecture in which each computer or
process on the network is either a client or a server.
• Client: a component that makes requests. Clients are
active initiators of transactions.
• Server: a component that satisfies requests
Servers are passive and react to client requests
• The Web is a client-server system
• Web browsers act as clients, and make requests
to web servers
• Web servers respond to requests with requested
information and/or computation
 Internet Servers
• Some different types of servers include:
– Mail servers
– Database servers
– Proxy servers
– Web server
– File server
– Domain name server
 a) Web Server
• A Web server is a computer or software program that
maps URL requests from a Web client (typically a
browser) to a resource that will handle the request and
return a response to the client.
• The Web client and the Web server use HTTP to
communicate over a TCP network.
• Handling a client request consists of several key steps:
– Parsing the request message
– Checking that the request is authorized
– Associating the URL in the request with a file name
– Constructing the response message
– Transmitting the response message to the requesting client
• The server can generate the response message in a
variety of ways:
i. The server simply retrieves the file associated with
the URL and returns the contents to the client.
ii. The server may invoke a script that communicates
with other servers or a back-end database to
construct the response message.
 Web-Site vs. Web-Server
• Web site and Web server are different:
• A Web site consists of a collection of Web
pages associated with a particular hostname.
• A Web server is a program to satisfy client
requests for Web resources.
 Web Server Software
• Operating system tasks include running programs
and allocating computer resources.
• Linux: Open-source operating system that is easy
to install, fast, and efficient.
• Examples of popular Web server programs are:
– Apache HTTP Server
– Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
– Sun Java System Web Server (JSWS)
– Netcraft
 Apache HTTP Server

• "HTTP server" is another term for Web server.

• It is an open-source HTTP server for modern
operating systems including UNIX and Windows.
• Apache has dominated the Web since 1996
because it is free (open source) and performs
efficiently.

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 Microsoft Internet Information
Server
• Comes bundled with current versions of Microsoft
Windows Server operating systems
• Used on many corporate intranets

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 Dynamic Content
• Dynamic content is non-static information constructed in
response to a Web client’s request.
• Dynamic page: Web page whose content is shaped by a
program in response to user requests.
• Static page: An unchanging page retrieved from disk.
• Server-side scripting :
– Programs running on a Web server create Web pages before
sending them back to the requesting Web clients through some
dynamic page-generation technologies:
– Server side scripts are combined with html tags to create dynamic
content
• Active Server Pages (ASP)
• JavaServer Pages (JSP)
• PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP)
Dynamic Web Pages

Database-driven Web site Architecture

b) Domain Name Server

A domain names server maintains tables with

domain names matched to their IP addresses
Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
Provide commercial Internet access
 How to make a web page
Create an HTML File
Upload file to server
• Web documents are text files with .html
extension
• These text files have HTML “tags” in them
 The internet vs An Intranet
Sr. No. Internet Intranet
1 Internet is network of Computers which is Intranet is network of Computers designed for a
open for all. Means any one can use it. specific group of users. Only authorized members
are allowed to access the network.
2 Internet itself consists of a large number of Intranet can be accessed from Internet but with
intranets. restrictions
3 Unlimited users can access internet Limited Users can access intranet .i.e. Authorized
users.

4 Visitor’s traffic is unlimited. Limited visitor’s traffic.

5 Contains unlimited source of information Contains only specific group purpose

information/

6 Collection of various LANs, MANs and Mostly any of LAN or MAN or WAN can be
WANs. intranet.