Web servers

Working:

Process of getting a Web page onto your computer screen:

The browser broke the URL into three parts:
The protocol ("http")
The server name ("www.howstuffworks.com")
The file name ("web-server.htm")

The browser communicated with a name server to translate the server name "www.howstuffworks.com" into an IP Address, which it uses to connect to the server machine.

The browser then formed a connection to the server at that IP address on port 80.

Following the HTTP protocol, the browser sent a GET request to the server, asking for the file http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm.

The server then sent the HTML text for the Web page to the browser.

The browser read the HTML tags and formatted the page onto your screen.


Reference:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/web-server2.htm