Chapter One

Internet Programming

Introduction to Web Pages

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 Chapter Objectives

 A general understanding of the fundamentals of the Internet and

WWW
 To discuss the architecture of WWW and describe the concepts of
hypertext and hypermedia.
 To describe Web clients and Web servers and their components.
 To define URL as a tool to identify a Web server.
 To discuss HTTP and its transactions.
 To define and list the fields in a request message.
 Introduction to terms and acronyms

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Networking
• Networks are systems that are formed by links.
• People use different types of networks every day:
–Mail delivery system
–Telephone system
–Corporate computer network
–The Internet

• Computers can be linked by networks to share

data and resources.
• A network can be as simple as two computers
connected by a single cable or as complex as
hundreds of computers connected to devices that
What is the Internet
• Most people today have had exposure to the Internet at
school, in their homes, at their jobs, or at their local library.
• The Internet is a worldwide collection of computers and
computer networks that links billions of computers used by
businesses, government, educational institutions,
organizations, and individuals using modems, phone lines,
television cables, satellite links, fiber-optic connections, and
other communications devices and media
 There are, however, several major International organizations that help
manage the Internet so that everyone uses the same rules.
Internet
 In business, large networks can be used to advertise
and sell products, order supplies, and communicate
with customers.
 Communication over a network is usually more
efficient and less expensive than traditional forms of
communication, such as regular mail or long distance
phone calls.
 The Internet is considered a "network of networks"
because it is literally made up of millions of networks
that are connected to each other.
Here are other uses of a network and the Internet:
– Sharing music and video files
– Research and on-line learning
– Chatting with friends
– Planning vacations
– Purchasing gifts and supplies
Internet Service Providers (ISP)
• An Internet service provider (ISP) is a company that has a permanent
connection to the Internet backbone
• ISPs utilize high- or medium-speed data lines to allow individuals and
companies to connect to the backbone for access to the Internet.
 Any home, business or organization that wants to connect to the Internet
must use an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
 An ISP is a company that provides the connections and support to
access the Internet.
 It can also provide additional services such as Email and web hosting.
The Internet
IP Address
IP stands for “Internet protocol” which is a set of rules governing the
format of data sent via the Internet or local network.
IP addresses are the identifier that allows information to be sent
between devices on a network.
they contain location information and make devices accessible for
communication.
IP is a simple protocol for attempting to send data
between two computers
every node has a unique numeric address
IPV4 - 32bit
IPV6 - 128bit
an IP address can correspond to a domain

Internet Programming lec 7

The Internet
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) adds multiplexing,
guaranteed message delivery on top of IP
multiplexing: multiple programs using the same IP
address
port: a number given to each program or service
port 80: web browser (port 443 for secure browsing)
port 25: email
port 22: ssh
Port 23:telnet
IP + TCP = TCP/IP
some programs (games, streaming media programs) use
simpler UDP protocol instead of TCP

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World Wide Web
 The World Wide Web, also called the Web, is the part
of the Internet that supports multimedia and consists of
a collection of linked documents.
 To support multimedia, the Web relies on the
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is a set of
rules for exchanging text, graphic, sound, video, and
other multimedia files.
Elements of a WWW
Sever and Client
Web browser
Webpage/ website
URL
DNS 9
Internet Programming lec
 Elements of a WWW
 The linked documents, or pages of information, on the Web are
known as Web pages.
 Because the Web supports text, graphics, sound, and video, a
Web page can include any of these multimedia elements.
 A Web site is a related collection of Web pages that is created
and maintained by an individual, company, educational
institution, or other organization.
 Each Web site contains a home page

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• Web pages are stored on a Web server, or host, which is
a computer that stores and sends (serves) requested Web
pages and other files.
• Any computer that has Web server software installed and
is connected to the Internet can act as a Web server.
• Every Web site is stored on, and runs from, one or more
Web servers. A large Web site may be spread over
several servers in different geographic locations.
• In order to make the Web pages that you have developed
available to your audience, you have to publish those
pages.

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  Publishing is copying the Web pages and
associated files such as graphics and audio to
a Web server
 Once a Web page is published, anyone who
has access to the Internet can view it,
regardless of where the Web server is located.
 Once a Web page is published, it can be read
by almost any computer: whether you use the
Mac, Windows, or Linux operating system, with
a variety of computer hardware, you have
access to billions of published Web pages
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 WWW, Cont…

 A communications protocol is simply a set of

rules that computers use to communicate over
a network
– The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a
protocol that computers use to communicate on the
WWW.
– HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, which is used
when sensitive information such as bank details are
being exchanged.

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 Web Browsers
• People access websites using software called a web
browser. Popular examples include Firefox, Internet
Explorer, Safari, Chrome, and Opera.
• A Web browser, also called a browser, is a program
that interprets and displays Web pages and enables
you to view and interact with a Web page.
 Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple
Safari are popular browsers today.
 To locate a Web page using a browser, you type the
Web page’s Uniform Resource Locator (URL) in the
browser’s Address or Location bar.

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 WWW, Cont…

 A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the address of

a document or other file accessible on the Internet. An
example of a URL on the Web is:
http://www.google.com

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World Wide Web
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

an identifier for the location of a document on a web site

a basic URL:
http://www..com/info/regesstepp/index.html
protocol host path
upon entering this URL into the browser, it would:
ask the DNS server for the IP address of www.google.com
connect to that IP address at port 80
ask the server to GET /info/regesstepp/index.html
display the resulting page on the screen

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 Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)

 Standard way of specifying entities on networks

 First part - protocol
– terminated by colon ( : )
– common protocols are http, ftp, mailto, telnet,

 Second part - varies according to protocol

– mailto - e-mail address e.g.:
 mailto: David.Brailsford@nottingham.ac.uk

– resource-oriented protocols (http, ftp etc)

 Host name + domain names (preceded by //)
– may optionally include username, password and port

 Pathname (usually related to the path of a file on the server)

 i.e. //fully-qualified-domain-name/path-to-document

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World Wide Web
Domain Name System (DNS)
a set of servers that map written names to IP
addresses
because names are easier to remember than IP addresses
Example: www.cps.gordon.edu → 216.236.251.139
many systems maintain a local cache called a hosts
file (looking up domain names is expensive)
Windows: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Mac: /private/etc/hosts
Linux: /etc/hosts

Internet Programming lec 18

 WWW, Cont…

 Most web pages are written in a special

language called the Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML).
 HTML pages consist of text together with
formatting instructions, graphics and audio.
 XML (Extensible Markup Language) is an
alternative to HTML.
– HTML pages describe the format of the data’s
presentation, pages written in XML describe only
how the data is structured.

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 WWW, Cont…
 W3C
– The World Wide Web Consortium is a group of
experts who meet regularly to develop common
protocols for the evolution of the WWW.
– The W3C agrees on standards for HTML, XML and
other web technologies, and for how web browsers
should interpret them.
– The most essential Web standard are HTML, CSS,
and XML.
20 – The latest HTML standard is HTML 5.
 Hyperlink
 Hyperlinks are an essential part of the World Wide
Web.
 A hyperlink, also called a link, is an element used to
connect one Web page to another Web page that’s
located on the same server or used to link Web pages
located on a different Web server located anywhere in
the world.
 Clicking a hyperlink allows you to move quickly from
one Web page to another, and the user does not have
to be concerned about where the Web pages reside.
 You also can click hyperlinks to move to a different
section of the same Web page

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 The client server paradigm

 A widely used form of communication

 Server application waits passively for contact from
clients
 A server provides a specific service
 Client application actively initiates contact with the
server
 Information can flow in both directions
 Typical situation is many clients interacting with
each server

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 Architecture of WWW

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HTTP Request

• Delivered from a client to a server containing instructions for the

server
• Contains
– the method to be applied to the data resource
– the identifier of the resource
– the protocol version in use
• Most commonly used methods:
– GET - Fetch a document
– HEAD - Fetch just the header of the document
– POST - Execute the document, using the data in body
– PUT - Store a new document on the server
– DELETE - Remove a document from the server

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 Request and response messages

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Request message

General request message structure

METHOD /path-to-resource HTTP/version-number
Header-Name-1: value
Header-Name-2: value

[optional request body]

Example
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.cs.nott.ac.uk
Accept: text/*
User-Agent: Mozilla/2.02Gold (Win 10)

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HTTP Response

• Message generated by a server after receiving

and interpreting a request
• Responses contain:
– Status line with the protocol version, a status code,
and a “reason phrase”
– Response-Header (containing information about the
server)
– Entity Header (meta-information)
– Entity Body (data)

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Response message

General response message structure

HTTP/version-number status-code message
Response-Header-Name-1: value
Response-Header-Name-2: value
Entity-Header-Name-1: value
Entity-Header-Name-2: value Example
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
[optional entity body] Server: Apache (Red-Hat/Linux)
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 9934

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>School of Computer Science</TITLE>
…
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Some HTTP Status Codes

• 200 : OK
• 201 : Created
• 202 : Accepted
• 204 : No Content
• 301 : Moved Permanently
• 302 : Moved Temporarily
• 400 : Bad Request
• 401 : Unauthorized
• 403 : Forbidden
• 404 : Not Found
• 500 : Internal Server Error
• 503 : Service Unavailable

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Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME)

Convention for specifying content type of a

message
In HTTP, typically used to specify content type of the
body of the response
MIME content type syntax
Top – level type / subtype
Examples: text/ html, image/ jpeg

Internet Programming lec 30

Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME)

sometimes when including resources in a page

(style sheet, icon, multimedia object), we
specify their type of

Internet Programming lec 31

HTTP Request

Common header fields:

Host: host name from URL (required)
User – Agent : type of browser sending request
Accept : MIME type of acceptable documents
Connection: value CLOSE tells server to close connection after single
request/response
Content-Type: MIME type of (POST) body, normally application/x-
www-form-url encoded
Content-Length: bytes in body
Referer: URL of document containing link that supplied URI for this
HTTP request

Internet Programming lec 32

HTTP Response

Very similar to requests

Structure of the response:
Status line
Header field(s)
Blank line
Optional body
Eg. http/1.1
Date Mon,24 oct 2016 15:19:10 GMT
Server Appache 13.0.4 ( Red Hat Linux )
Last_Modified Sat,14 oct 2016 04:12:00 GMT
Accept Range :byte
Content _ length 288
Connection : Close

Internet Programming lec 33

 HTTP Response

Status code is a three digits number

The first digit specified the general status
1 informational 1xx request received still in process
2 Success 2xx Correct request processed correctly
3 Redirection 3xx the request must be repeated or
redirected
4 Client error 4xx the request cannot be processed
5 Server error 5xx the server has failed trying to process

Internet Programming lec 34

HTTP Response

When something goes wrong, the web server

returns a special “error code” number to the
browser, possibly followed by an HTML
document
Common error code

Internet Programming lec 35

Next Class

Web Technology and Tools

Internet Programming lec 36