Web servers can seem like an inscrutable and confusing topic, especially when combined with an alien operating system like Linux. Compounding this initial complexity is the fact that the world of web development is always changing, and what you learn one year (or month!) may no longer be valid the next. Furthermore, there is no one specific web server technology, and a beginner may find it difficult to situate himself amongst the varying camps and frameworks. In practice, though, the theory and application of web servers is simple and user-friendly. In this essay, I will introduce just what is a web server, and address the different ways that they are used for web development.
A web server is a tool for transferring files from one computer to another. The place the files are going is called the client, (usually a browser on a personal computer), while the server itself is also a computer, albeit one without a screen or the traditional GUI¹. While most of us laymen think of computers in relation to what we do with them, computers have their own important functions that occur unseen, which is exemplified by the server. A server’s job is to host websites, which the client (you) can request and access. In sum, a web server listens for requests from the client and returns data to them, which is usually a file².
Web servers host websites, which are simply collections of files, (albeit files with strange extension types like .html, .css, and .js). When you want to access a website, you type its URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, and your computer is connected to the server that hosts it. This request for the file on the server is called an HTTP request, which stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. If the server cannot find the file, a 404 response is returned. One important thing to remember is that different components of a webpage may live in different servers; for example, the ads on a webpage may come from one server, while the image and video may come from another³ ⁴.
As mentioned above, there is no one-size-fits-all web server system, but there are various frameworks which have coalesced around specific technologies, known as software bundles. One such framework is built around Apache, the most widely used web server software in the world, and two other tools that are often used with Apache, called PHP and MySQL. PHP is a server-side scripting language important for designing websites, while MySQL is a popular database for storing online data⁶. These three tools combine with the Linux, Windows, and Mac operating systems mentioned above to form the LAMPstack, WAMPstack, and MAMPstack, respectively. While they work on all operating systems, their ease of set-up is different for each. Apache comes preinstalled on many Linux distributions (or distros)⁵ and on Mac OS-X. Windows can also run the Apache web server, but the process of installing it is more complicated⁷. While the Lamp and Wampstack have been the predominant software bundle for web development traditionally, more recently JavaScript-focused alternatives have emerged, which I address below.
JavaScript was long thought of as only a client-side language, but in recent years it has become the basis of its own web server software bundle, termed the MEANstack⁸. The components of the MEANstack are MongoDB, a non-relational database program which uses JSON-like objects⁹, Express, a back-end web application framework, Angular, a front-end web app framework, and Node.js, a software for developing JavaScript-based applications. One benefit of the MEANstack is that it uses only one language throughout the entire application, unlike the Lampstack, which must switch between multiple languages¹⁰. The MEANstack provides an alternative to traditional LAMPstack based web servers, but both technologies are likely to play important roles in future web development.
Web servers are the backbone of the modern Internet, allowing us to connect across vast distances to new ideas and information. While the terminology and use of web servers may be confusing, the rapid pace of change of technology in the field is reassuring, because it means that everyone else is probably just as confused as you! As this technology continues to change and progress, all that is required to stay current is a bent for learning and a mastery of Google. With only these two skills, you will find yourself designing websites for years to come.
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