A web server is server software, or in some case a hardware dedicated to running this software, that can satisfy client requests on the World Wide Web.
A web server can, in general, contain or serve one or more websites.
As its name implies server which means it meant to serve web pages as requested by users also called clients.
A web server can processes incoming network requests over Hypertext Transfer Protocol, (HTTP for short) and several other related protocols.
This article shall unravel the function of a web server.
As earlier stated, Web server are software dedicated to serve web pages over the internet as they are requested by users.
These software are sometimes required to run on hardware such as a computer or other devices.
Put simply a web server is a computer that runs websites.
For the web sever to perform efficiently these hardware (e.g. Computer or other networking devices) must be connected to the internet at all times.
Know what is networking here
There are specific software that are cut out for web service architecture.
Interesting, most web server software are installed already on our computer system software without these web server software we could not surf the web from our laptops or Personal Computers (PC)
These web server software include but not limited to:
Apache HTTP Server is a popular web server developed by Apache Software Foundation.
Apache is not only widely used but it is a free and open source web server for Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, Linux, Solaris and other operating systems; it needs the Apache license.
Nginix, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS for short) for all Windows computers, etc
Other web servers include Novell’s NetWare server, Google Web Server (GWS) and IBM’s family of Domino servers.
Learn what are the types of intranet here
The main job of a web server is to display or serve website content through storing, processing and delivering web pages to users or client’s request.
Web server can achieve this feat with the help of hypertext transfer protocol (also HTTP).
Learn how to set up a Local Area Network here
Besides HTTP, web servers also support SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol), used for email, file transfer and storage.
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