Internet Information Services (IIS)

Formerly called Internet Information Server is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. IIS 7.5 supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, FTPS, SMTP and NNTP. It is an integral part of the Windows Server family of products, as well as certain editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. IIS is not turned on by default when Windows is installed.

The IIS Manager is accessed through the Microsoft Management Console or Administrative Tools in the Control Panel.

Purpose of IIS
The Microsoft Internet Information Server is designed to deliver high speed and secure information publishing, while also serving as a platform for developers and independent software vendors to extend the Internets standard communication capabilities.

Features of IIS 5.0

Security Administration Programmability

Administration
Restarting IIS Backing up and restoring IIS Improved Custom Error Messages Remote Administration Terminal services Centralized Administration

Programmability
Active Server Pages Application Protection

Mail Based Service

The term Webmail (or Web-based email) is used to describe two things. One use of the word is to describe a Webmail client: an email client implemented as a web application accessed via a web browser. The other use of the word is to describe a Webbased email service: an email service offered through a web site (a webmail provider) such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and AOL Mail.

A typical path for a mail message

Internet Database Server

Creating Web Database Forms
ASP.NET enables Web pages to access database data Web forms that display data in single record, tabular, and master-detail displays Web form that displays image data Functionality to Web forms with pick lists and validation controls

Web-Database Connectivity
ASP.NET provides data-bound server controls that support complex data binding

Locating Database Servers

Put the web server and the database on the same perimeter network (possibly even on the same machine). No database traffic will have to pass through the firewall in normal operation.

Locating Database Servers

Put the web server and the database both on the internal network. No database traffic will have to pass through the firewall; on the other hand, HTTP requests will. You are relying on the security of the web server.

Locating Database Servers

Put the web server on the perimeter network and the database server on the internal network, and use the database's native protocol to connect them. You are relying on your ability to configure the firewall and the database appropriately to secure the protocol; you must let database traffic through.

Locating Database Servers

Put the web server on the perimeter network and the database server on the internal network, and use a custom-written protocol to connect them. You are relying on your ability to construct a secure protocol that enables the transactions you need.

Retrieving files on the Web: the URL and Domain Name System
URL stands for uniform resource locator. The URL specifies the Internet address of a file stored on a host computer, or server, connected to the Internet. Web browsers use the URL to retrieve the file from the server. This file is downloaded to the user's computer, or client, and displayed on the monitor connected to the machine. Because of this relationship between clients and servers, the Web is a client-server network.

IP ADDRESS & DNS

Underlying the functionality of a URL is a base numeric address that points to the computer that hosts the file. This numeric address is called the ip (internet protocol) address. The host portion of a URL is translated into its corresponding IP address using the domain name system (dns). The DNS is a worldwide system of servers that stores location pointers to the computers that host networked files. Since numeric strings are difficult for humans to use, alphanumeric addresses are employed by users. Once the translation is made by the DNS, the browser can contact the server and ask for the specific file designated in the URL. For example, the DNS translates www.microsoft.com into the IP address 207.46.19.254.

Anatomy of a URL
Every file on the Internet, no matter what its protocol, has a unique URL. Each URL points to a specific file located in a specific directory on the host machine. This is the format of a URL: protocol://host/path/filename For example, this is a URL from the site of the U.S. Senate of a live video stream sent by a camera pointed at the U.S. Capitol: http://www.senate.gov/general/capcam.htm This URL is typical of addresses hosted in domains in the United States. The structure of this URL is shown below. Protocol: http Host computer name: www Second-level domain name: senate Top-level domain name: gov Directory name: general File name: capcam.htm

Several generic top-level domains (gTLDs) common in the United States

com edu gov mil net org

commercial enterprise educational institution U.S. government entity U.S. military entity network access provder usually nonprofit organizations

country codes
In addition, dozens of domain names have been assigned to identify and locate files stored on servers in countries around the world. These are referred to as country codes, and have been standardized by the International Standards Organization as ISO 3166.

ch de

Switzerland Germany

jp
uk

Japan
United Kingdom

Addition top-level domain names

Additional top-level domain names were approved in 2000 by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): .biz, .museum, .info, .pro (for professionals) .name (for individuals), .aero (for the aerospace industry), and .coop (for cooperatives). Unconventional domain names have been marketed outside of the system, for example, .tv for sites that offer content similar to television broadcasts.

In 2011, ICANN decided to open up domain names without restriction, including in any language or written script. The cost of establishing and maintaining a new name is quite expensive - $185,000 for the application fee alone - so the actual effect of this change will be limited.

WWW Server
Web server can refer to either the hardware (the computer) or the software (the computer application) that helps to deliver Web content that can be accessed through the Internet.

Most common use of web servers

host websites gaming data storage or running enterprise applications.

Basic World Wide Web servers

Apache server Spinner Alibaba Jungle

How Do Web Servers Work

The Web server stores all of the files necessary to display some web page on your computer -- typically all the individual pages that comprise the entirety of a Web site, any images/graphic files and any scripts that make dynamic elements of the site function. Once contact has been made, the browser requests the data from the Web server, and using HTTP, the server delivers the data back to your browser. The browser in turn converts, or formats, the computer languages that the files are made up of into what you see displayed in your browser. In the same way the server can send the files to many client computers at the same time, allowing multiple clients to view the same page simultaneously.

WWW Browser
A Client and a Server are two parts of a connection. In a web environment, these are two distinct machines, A Client is any machine that requests information, the Server is who the client makes the request to. So a Web Server is basically a PC that is designed to accept requests from remote computers and send on the information requested.

A Web client is actually your browser. It is the browser on you PC/Mac that makes the requests to the remote server. A PC/Mac that uses a web (Client) browser is referred to as a Client Machine.

IRC
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging (chat) or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file sharing. IRC was created in 1988. Client software is available for every major operating system that supports Internet access. As of April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than half a million users at a time, with hundreds of thousands of channels operating on a total of roughly 1,500 servers out of roughly 3,200 servers worldwide.

IRC software
mIRC is a popular Internet Relay Chat client used by millions of people, and thousands of organizations, to communicate, share, play and work with each other on IRC networks around the world.

How the Usenet News Protocols Work

Usenet News is a distributed computer conferencing system. Conferences in Usenet News are called newsgroups, and messages are called articles. The basic principle of Usenet News is that a local server handles most of the functionality.

Usenet News standardizes two variants of the NNTP protocols: One for communication between adjacent servers, one for communication between a client and a server.

How the Usenet News Protocols Work

Each server can download as much as it wants of what is available on any of the adjacent servers. Loop control is handled both by a trace list and a list of the Message-IDs of received messages stored by each server, so that the server can reject the same message coming back again.

How the Usenet News Protocols Work

The procedure for distribution of news can be compared to pouring water onto a flat surface; the water flows out in all directions.

How the Usenet News Protocols Work

The figure below shows how new articles are forwarded from server to server in Usenet News. A server tells its adjacent servers which items it offers, the server requests those it has not already got via another route.

FTP
Short for File Transfer Protocol, the protocol for exchanging files over the Internet. FTP works in the same way as HTTP for transferring Web pages from a server to a user's browser and SMTP for transferring electronic mail across the Internet in that, like these technologies, FTP uses the Internet's TCP/IP protocols to enable data transfer.

FTP is most commonly used to download a file from a server using the Internet or to upload a file to a server (e.g., uploading a Web page file to a server).

FTP software
SmartFTP - SmartFTP is an FTP (File Transfer Protocol), FTPS, SFTP, SSH, Terminal client. It allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet. With its many basic and advanced Features SmartFTP also offers secure, reliable and efficient transfers that make it a powerful tool. FileZilla Free FTP

Telnet
A terminal emulation program for TCP/IP networks such as the Internet. The Telnet program runs on your computer and connects your PC to a server on the network. You can then enter commands through the Telnet program and they will be executed as if you were entering them directly on the server console. This enables you to control the server and communicate with other servers on the network.

To start a Telnet session, you must log in to a server by entering a valid username and password.
Telnet is a common way to remotely control Web servers.

Telnet

Gopher
A system that pre-dates the World Wide Web for organizing and displaying files on Internet servers. A Gopher server presents its contents as a hierarchically structured list of files. With the ascendance of the Web, many gopher databases were converted to Web sites which can be more easily accessed via Web search engines.

Gopher was developed at the University of Minnesota and named after the school's mascot. Two systems, Veronica and Jughead, let you search global indices of resources stored in Gopher systems.

Gopher
The Gopher protocol is supposed to be a souped-up version of Anonymous FTP souped up because of the search capabilities it provided.

Gopher
Initially Gopher browsers could only display text-based files before developments such as HyperGopher, which were able to handle simple graphic formats though they were never used on a widespread basis as by this time the World Wide Web and its Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) were gaining in popularity, and had similar and more extensive functions.