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The computer that your website’s code, database, and files are stored on and delivered from is called a “server.” However, don’t be confused — there also a piece of software sitting on that server which is also called a server. That’s the web server, and it is critical to the functioning of your site. Without the web server, no one would be able to access website.
What is a Web Server?
Most people don’t spend much time thinking about what happens when they visit a website. They click on something and — like magic — it just appears. That’s okay if you’re just a user, but if you are going to run your own website its a good idea to know at least the basic of how this all works. An important piece of that is understanding what the web server does.
When you visit a website, the first thing that happens is that your web browser (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or some other browser) has to figure out where the website you are looking for is — what computer it is actually on. It might know already (because it has recently contacted the same website), or it may need to look up the IP address in the Domain Name System (DNS).
Once it knows where to find the site you are looking for, it sends a request to the server (computer) that manages your site. This request includes the URL of the page you are looking for, along with a bunch of other information, like what type of browser you are using, what your language preferences are, what site sent you there, and a host of other details.
The request is usually not handled directly by a website’s CMS or application code. Instead, it is received by the Web Server. The web server’s purpose is to continually listen for requests form the public internet, and then respond to them properly.
The web server receives the request and then, based on the details of the request and rules set up in the web server’s configuration files, handles the request somehow. Sometimes handing the request simply means retrieving a single static file. Other times it means activating another application and waiting for a response from it.
Once the web server has what it needs to fulfill the request — the contents of a file, the data from its own cache, the output from a separate application — it send that content, along with some additional information, back to the computer that requested it.
Once your own computer has the information it requested, it will display it to you.
The Web Server is Critical
Obviously the web server plays a key part in the process of visiting a website.
Additionally, it is critically important that the web server run as quickly as possible. There are a number of steps in the process from you clicking on a link to the page finally being displayed back to you, and you are expecting it to be nearly instantaneous. Since a certain amount of “travel time” is nearly impossible to avoid, the onus for speed often rests on the web server — especially if the application code is as optimized as possible.
Web Server content caching
One of the ways that a web server can speed up its delivery of content is to cache anything that it may need to deliver often.
Caching means storing in memory. If a web server stores, in active memory, the results of a certain type of request, then it can respond to that request immediately without need to peruse the file system or launch another application.
Caching is especially helpful for speeding up the delivery of content which is technically dynamic (like pages coming out of a CMS) but which actually don’t change very much, and so don’t need to be re-rendered from source code with every request.
Web server configuration — .htaccess
Apache web servers (the most popular type of web server) use files called .htaccess to store specific instructions on how to respond to particular types of requests. These instructions can include:
- rewriting request details before sending them to secondary applications (
mod_rewrite). - blocking requests by IP address
- serving different content based on referring website (can be used to prevent hotlinking)
Alternatives to web servers
If you want to run a publicly-available website, you need to have a web server. However, that doesn’t mean you need “stand alone” web server software. Some web applications (like Ruby on Rails) are bundled with web servers, and other applications (like Node.js) include web server functionality as an integral part of their feature set.
Popular web servers
- Apache — Apache is the most widely used web server, and many web applications (notably, WordPress) are specifically designed to work in conjunction with it, and are not tested on other web servers. If you don’t have a specific reason to use another web server, opt for Apache if given a choice.
- LiteSpeed
- Nginx
- Tomcat JSP
- IIS — Microsoft’s web server, for use on Windows Server, especially in conjunction with the .NET framework and other web technology from Microsoft.
