Web Servers

Answers to Questions about...
Web Servers

1. What is HTTP?

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol, an Internet protocol that enables the distribution of hypertext documents. Like other TCP/IP services, such as FTP, NNTP and SMTP, HTTP is a client/server protocol.

The terms HTTP server and web server are roughly interchangeable (though modern server products bundle far more functionality than HTTP prescribes, for example server-side scripting and a native application programming interface [API]). The terms HTTP client and web browser are roughly interchangeable (although modern browser products bundle far more functionality than HTTP prescribes, for example client-side scripting and a Java Virtual Machine).

HTTP's evolution is motivated by concern over its viability as the dominant Internet protocol and future pipeline for distributed object computing. Towards this end, the W3C [World Wide Web Committee] and IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] are collaborating on HTTP/1.1. This upgrade addresses performance issues, state management (cookies), transparent content negotiation, universal time conventions, and PEP, a dynamic extension mechanism for HTTP -- all lacking in v1.0.

References: RFC 1945 defines HTTP/1.0; RFC 2068 defines HTTP/1.1.