Adding Reply Archived Topic: It will not be bumped to the top of the forum. Topic Process of web browsing Membername   Not a member? Sign Up Free (takes 20 seconds) Password   Forgotten your password? Post Font: Verdana Arial Black Georgia Comic Sans Impact   Size: Tiny Normal Big Huge   Color: Default Dark Red Red Orange Brown Green Olive Cyan Blue Dark Blue Indigo Black [ Check Spelling ] [ Post Preview ] [ LiveTags ] FAQ Keyword Search: Post Options Favorites Manager Notify me of new replies to this topic by email Notify me of new replies to this topic by private message Original Post bg kNIFE Posted at 10:05 am on July 23, 2008 As I am clearly a noob I request the help of people who know more, specifically pleaseremove. If someone could explain me the process of web browsing, the whole name look up, resolving, etc. I have tried to understand it, but I need it in common words, such as pleaseremove so well explains. I enter www.foobar.com. What happens next, step by step?

Replies bg kNIFE Posted at 11:05 am on July 23, 2008 Excellent Thank you. ManicD Posted at 10:42 am on July 23, 2008 ok, first thing to understand is computers need an ip address not a name to connect to each other. so, you enter www.foobar.com into yoru browser and 1) yoru computer looks in its local cache file to see if it already knows the IP address. this file is the windows/system32/drivers/ect/hosts.txt file if your computer knows the IP address jump to Section 8 2) your computer does not know the IP address, so it needs to ask someone, now when you connect to a network like the internet, you get given the ip address of a DNS (dynamic naming service) server, so you go and ask this dns server if it knows the ip address for www.foobar.com. it looks in its local cache file if teh dns server knows the IP address then goto section 7 3) if the dns server doesnt know the ip of www.foobar.com it then handles the rest of teh asking for you, DNS servers have a list of "Root Hints" this is a list of other Root DNS servers where it can go ask for help finding an ip address. so you dns server goes and asks a root dns server, "do you know the ip address of www.foobar.com?"   4) now the root dns server doesnt have a list of every site on the net, it has a list of ip addresses for servers handling teh top level domian names .com .uk .org .biz etc etc. so the root dns server replies to your dns server and says, "i dont knwo the address for www.foobar.com, but i do know that xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx knows about all the sites in the .com domain, go speak to him" 5) so now yoru dns server goes and speaks to the .com domain dns server, and asks if he knows, he looks at his local files and he replies, "no, i dont know who 'www.foobar.com' is, but i do know the ip of teh dns server that handles 'the foobar.com' domain 6) so now your nds server goes and speaks to the foobar.com dns server, and asks, and teh foobar.com server looks at his local files and finds a CNAME record,   a CNAME record is a record that says the the computer known as 'www' is really called 'web1' so the foobar.com dns server then looks in its records again and finds the record for the computer named 'web1' to which is has the ip address for (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) so now the foobar.com dns server tells yoru dns server that it does know teh ip address of www.foobar.com and its it xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 7) now yoru dns server tells you, yes i knwo the ip address of www.foobar.com it is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 8) your computer then connects to ip xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx it uses the standard http protocal port of 80 and retrives teh website for you ManicD Microsoft Certified System Administrator scottyrob Posted at 10:09 am on July 23, 2008 ... Are the rest of us not good enough to explain? If no one else has replied within an hour ill let you know.. Because i dont want to explain it only for someone else too! Hope it will be good enough for you......... All 3 previous replies displayed.