Web Server Definition

Definition: A web server is a computer that runs websites. It's a computer program that distributes web pages as they are requisitioned. The basic objective of the web server is to store, process and deliver web pages to the users. This intercommunication is done using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). These web pages are mostly static content that includes HTML documents, images, style sheets, test etc. Apart from HTTP, a web server also supports SMTP (Simple Mail transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol) protocol for emailing and for file transfer and storage.

Description: The main job of a web server is to display the website content. If a web server is not exposed to the public and is used internally, then it is called Intranet Server. When anyone requests for a website by adding the URL or web address on a web browser’s (like Chrome or Firefox) address bar (like www.economictimes.com), the browser sends a request to the Internet for viewing the corresponding web page for that address. A Domain Name Server (DNS) converts this URL to an IP Address (For example 192.168.216.345), which in turn points to a Web Server.

The Web Server is requested to present the content website to the user’s browser. All websites on the Internet have a unique identifier in terms of an IP address. This Internet Protocol address is used to communicate between different servers across the Internet. These days, Apache server is the most common web server available in the market. Apache is an open source software that handles almost 70 percent of all websites available today. Most of the web-based applications use Apache as their default Web Server environment. Another web server that is generally available is Internet Information Service (IIS). IIS is owned by Microsoft.

Features of Web Server

Here, we will explain the features of web server and characteristics; like as  

• Web Server can support enlarge data storage support, so it is capable to make multiple websites.
• Easy to configure log file set up, enabling where to hold all log files. (Log files help to analyses web traffic and more)
• It helps to control bandwidth to regulate network traffic, so due to this it can avoid the down time while flowing high volume web traffic.
• Easy to make FTP websites, because it helps to move enlarge files from one site to other site.
• Easy to set up website configuration and directory security
• Easy to make virtual directories, and then help to map them along with physical directories.
• Easy to set up of custom error pages configuration that means it helps to view user friendly error messages on your website, when your website is getting any issues like as 404 Error will be displayed if web pages do not presented.
• Can be specified default documents for example if any file has not specify with its name then default documents will be displayed.
• It is enabled with Server side web scripting so it allows user to make dynamic websites. Few types of server side scripting languages are PHP, ASP, Ruby, Perl, Python, and more.