http://likeinyourdreams.tumblr.

com/bearonapplecomputer

What happens when you type an URL in

the browser and press enter?
Published on April 25, 2017

Maneesha Wijesinghe Follow

29 1 14
Solution Engineer

If you are in any type of a technical profession, I am sure someone at some point has
asked you this question. Whether you are an engineer, developer, marketer or even in
sales, it is always good to have a basic understanding of what is going on behind our
browsers and how information is transferred to our computers via the internet.

Let’s imagine that you want to access maps.google.com to check the exact time it would
take for you to get to your dinner reservation from work.

1. You type maps.google.com into the address bar of your browser.

2. The browser checks the cache for a DNS record to find the corresponding IP
address of maps.google.com.

DNS(Domain Name System) is a database that maintains the name of the website
(URL) and the particular IP address it links to. Every single URL on the internet has a
unique IP address assigned to it. The IP address belongs to the computer which hosts
the server of the website we are requesting to access. For an example, www.google.com
has an IP address of 209.85.227.104. So if you’d like you can reach www.google.com
by typing http://209.85.227.104 on your browser. DNS is a list of URLs and their IP
addresses just like how a phone book is a list of names and their corresponding phone
numbers.
The main purpose of DNS is human-friendly navigation. You can easily access a
website by typing the correct IP address for it on your browser but imagine having to
remember different sets of numbers for all the websites we regularly access? Therefore,
it is easier to remember the name of the website using an URL and let DNS do the work
for us with mapping it to the correct IP.

In order to find the DNS record, the browser checks four caches.

● First, it checks the browser cache. The browser maintains a repository of DNS
records for a fixed duration for websites you have previously visited. So, it is the first
place to run a DNS query.

● Second, the browser checks the OS cache. If it is not found in the browser cache,
the browser would make a system call (i.e. gethostname on Windows) to your
underlying computer OS to fetch the record since the OS also maintains a cache of DNS
records.

● Third, it checks the router cache. If it’s not found on your computer, the browser
would communicate with the router that maintains its’ own cache of DNS records.

● Fourth, it checks the ISP cache. If all steps fail, the browser would move on to the
ISP. Your ISP maintains its’ own DNS server which includes a cache of DNS records
which the browser would check with the last hope of finding your requested URL.

You may wonder why there are so many caches maintained at so many levels. Although
our information being cached somewhere doesn’t make us feel very comfortable when it
comes to privacy, caches are important for regulating network traffic and improving
data transfer times.

3. If the requested URL is not in the cache, ISP’s DNS server initiates a DNS query
to find the IP address of the server that hosts maps.google.com.

As mentioned earlier, in order for my computer to connect with the server that hosts
maps.google.com, I need the IP address of maps.google.com. The purpose of a DNS
query is to search multiple DNS servers on the internet until it finds the correct IP
address for the website. This type of search is called a recursive search since the search
will continue repeatedly from DNS server to DNS server until it either finds the IP
address we need or returns an error response saying it was unable to find it.

In this situation, we would call the ISP’s DNS server a DNS recursor whose
responsibility is to find the proper IP address of the intended domain name by asking
other DNS servers on the internet for an answer. The other DNS servers are called name
servers since they perform a DNS search based on the domain architecture of the
website domain name.
Without further confusing you, I’d like to use the following diagram to explain the
domain architecture.

Many website URLs we encounter today contain a third-level domain, a second-level

domain, and a top-level domain. Each of these levels contains their own name server
which is queried during the DNS lookup process.

For maps.google.com, first, the DNS recursor will contact the root name server. The
root name server will redirect it to .com domain name server. .com name server will
redirect it to google.com name server. google.com name server will find the matching
IP address for maps.google.com in its’ DNS records and return it to your DNS recursor
which will send it back to your browser.

These requests are sent using small data packets which contain information such as the
content of the request and the IP address it is destined for (IP address of the DNS
recursor). These packets travel through multiple networking equipment between the
client and the server before it reaches the correct DNS server. This equipment use
routing tables to figure out which way is the fastest possible way for the packet to reach
its’ destination. If these packets get lost you’ll get a request failed error. Otherwise, they
will reach the correct DNS server, grab the correct IP address, and come back to your
browser.

4. Browser initiates a TCP connection with the server.

Once the browser receives the correct IP address it will build a connection with the
server that matches IP address to transfer information. Browsers use internet protocols
to build such connections. There are a number of different internet protocols which can
be used but TCP is the most common protocol used for any type of HTTP request.

In order to transfer data packets between your computer(client) and the server, it is
important to have a TCP connection established. This connection is established using a
process called the TCP/IP three-way handshake. This is a three step process where the
client and the server exchange SYN(synchronize) and ACK(acknowledge) messages to
establish a connection.
1. Client machine sends a SYN packet to the server over the internet asking if it is
open for new connections.

2. If the server has open ports that can accept and initiate new connections, it’ll
respond with an ACKnowledgment of the SYN packet using a SYN/ACK packet.

3. The client will receive the SYN/ACK packet from the server and will acknowledge
it by sending an ACK packet.

Then a TCP connection is established for data transmission!

5. The browser sends an HTTP request to the web server.

Once the TCP connection is established, it is time to start transferring data! The browser
will send a GET request asking for maps.google.com web page. If you’re entering
credentials or submitting a form this could be a POST request. This request will also
contain additional information such as browser identification (User-Agent header),
types of requests that it will accept (Accept header), and connection headers asking it to
keep the TCP connection alive for additional requests. It will also pass information
taken from cookies the browser has in store for this domain.

Sample GET request (Headers are highlighted):

(If you’re curious about what’s going on behind the scenes you can use tools such as
Firebug to take a look at HTTP requests. It is always fun to see the information passed
between clients and servers without us knowing).

6. The server handles the request and sends back a response.

The server contains a web server (i.e Apache, IIS) which receives the request from the
browser and passes it to a request handler to read and generate a response. The request
handler is a program (written in ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby, etc.) that reads the request, its’
headers, and cookies to check what is being requested and also update the information
on the server if needed. Then it will assemble a response in a particular format (JSON,
XML, HTML).

7. The server sends out an HTTP response.

The server response contains the web page you requested as well as the status code,
compression type (Content-Encoding), how to cache the page (Cache-Control), any
cookies to set, privacy information, etc.
Example HTTP server response:

If you look at the above response the first line shows a status code. This is quite
important as it tells us the status of the response. There are five types of statuses
detailed using a numerical code.

● 1xx indicates an informational message only

● 2xx indicates success of some kind

● 3xx redirects the client to another URL

● 4xx indicates an error on the client's part

● 5xx indicates an error on the server's part

So, if you encountered an error you can take a look at the HTTP response to check what
type of status code you have received.

8. The browser displays the HTML content (for HTML responses which is the most
common).

The browser displays the HTML content in phases. First, it will render the bare bone
HTML skeleton. Then it will check the HTML tags and sends out GET requests for
additional elements on the web page, such as images, CSS stylesheets, JavaScript files
etc. These static files are cached by the browser so it doesn’t have to fetch them again
the next time you visit the page. At the end, you’ll see maps.google.com appearing on
your browser.

That’s it!

Although this seems like a very tedious prolonged process we know that it takes less
than seconds for a web page to render after we hit enter on our keyboard. All of these
steps happens within milliseconds before we could even notice. I sincerely hope this
article helps you answer the question "What happens when you type an URL in the
browser and press enter? ":)
 Maneesha Wijesinghe
Solution Engineer Follow
1 article

1 comment Newest

Sign in to leave your comment

Volodymyr Topilnytskyi 7mo

Trainee So ware Engineer
A great explanation!
Like Reply 1 Like

Top stories from Editors' Picks

My Shoes Don’t Fit Building brighter futures in South Africa, I le my job in private equity to turn dru
Louis M. Profeta MD on LinkedIn one computer at a time dealers and gang leaders into legit
Brad Smith on LinkedIn entrepreneurs
Catherine Hoke on LinkedIn

Looking for more of the latest headlines on LinkedIn?

Discover more stories

Sign up Help Center About Careers Advertising Talent Solutions Sales Solutions Small Business Mobile Language Online Learning

Search Jobs Directories Members Pulse Topics Companies Universities Titles ProFinder
© 2018 User Agreement Privacy Policy Community Guidelines Cookie Policy Copyright Policy Unsubscribe