Client Server and Protocols
Servers and Clients
✔ A “server” is just a computer running a
piece of software that provides resources to
clients
✔ A client is something that requests
something from a server
Servers
Requests
[Link]
Responses
MyLaptop
Client/Server
✔ The client machine requests something from
the server, in this case a web page. The
server looks up the web page and returns it.
✔ Sometimes the server machine is dedicated
to only that process, but most of the time it
can also do other things
✔ You can run a web server on an NT or Unix
box and also do other things with it.
Protocols
✔ Requests are made to the server in a specific
format--a protocol.
✔ This is called an application-layer protocol.
It runs on top of TCP/IP
✔ It’s often just very simple text commands
HTTP Protocol
✔ HTTP is a protocol for requesting web
pages from a server. It’s just a series of text
commands that is transmitted via TCP.
✔ Example: telnet <webserver> 80
– This connects you to the web server software
running on the destination machine. You can
issue commands directly to the server software
– This is actually what your web browser is doing
behind the scenes!
HTTP Protocol
pinafore 55# telnet azure 80
Trying [Link]...
Connected to [Link].
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /[Link]
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC….
<html>
<head>
<title>STL</title>
</head>
Connecting to a port
✔ The “telnet 80” command tells the software
to directly connect to port 80 on the
destination machine. By convention this is
usually where http servers listen for
requests. This allows us to pass commands
directly to the server software
✔ Other servers listen on different ports
SMTP protocol
✔ Kids, don’t do this at home
✔ You can also directly connect to SMTP
mail servers and issue commands to them
✔ You can send very bogus fake mail that
won’t fool anyone but a novice
✔ Some admins get very upset when people
do things like this
SMTP
Telnet [Link] 25
HELO [Link]
MAIL FROM:admiral@[Link]
RCPT TO:ensign@[Link]
DATA
From: admiral@[Link] (The admiral in charge)
To: ensign@[Link]
Subject: Next assignment
Reply-To: admiral@[Link]
Report immediately to Adak island.
.
QUIT
Protocols
✔ SMTP has a simple command structure that
runs on top of TCP/IP
✔ You can hook up to the mail server software
and issue it commands
✔ You probably shouldn’t believe everything
your read in your mailbox
FTP
✔ File Transfer Protocol is used to move files
from one machine to another
✔ You’ll often use this to transfer HTML files
from your PC to an HTML server
✔ ws_ftp is one GUI ftp program; see web
searches for others
Clients, Servers, and Protocols
✔ Clients talk to servers to request data
✔ They communicate using a protocol
✔ These are often very simple text commands
that you can simulate yourself
Web Servers
✔ A web server can be almost any machine,
named anything.
✔ The thing that makes it a web server is a
program running on that machine that
understands the http protocol
✔ The machine can also run other things
Web Servers
✔ There are many web server programs out
there
– Commercial: Netscape Enterprise Server,
Microsoft IIS
– Free: Apache
✔ They can run on almost any OS
– Sun, Microsoft, Apple, Linux
Web Servers
✔ They just accept requests and return data
✔ Serious servers need to be well connected,
since they take up a lot of bandwidth
✔ Serious servers should also be secure
Servers
The Internal Network
Internet
Web Server
Firewall
Web Servers
✔ Web servers are often kept outside the
firewall because they’re prone to subversion
and attack. A compromised web server
outside the firewall won’t have really bad
consequences for machines inside the
firewall