About WWW:
The actual structure & system involved in running world wide web is quite complex, but to keep things easy we will disucss a brief description of the system in simple language.
WWW Naming Convention:
Before proceeding we will first look at the nomenclature of an internet address or URL. Like in www.lahorebiz.com there are three components in the form subdomain.domain.tld , where com is TLD meaning top level domain, LahoreBiz is domain and www is subdomain. TLD's are usually fixed and are decided by ICANNS an organization to conrtol the www DNS system. Currently, the global TLD's include .com , .net and .org while some specialized gTLD's are .edu , .gov and .mil , while some new gTLD's are .biz , .ebiz , .ecom , .name ,etc. and on the other hand each country is given their own set of TLD's like .ch is for Switzerland, .de for Germany, .fr for France and .com.pk , .net.pk , .edu.pk , .gov.pk , etc. are for Pakistan. Domain on other hand for any of the TLD's can be obtained through an ICANNS accreditied registerar, who usually charge you per annum cost, like USD27.00 per annum for yourname.com. Sub domains are free to create but they are created through an entry in your DNS script in the Web Server of your Web Hosting Company, who usually charge a small sum of money to make a subdomain, but many of them provide free subdomains as well.
Web Servers and DNS:
The first thing is that the web sites are put on special dedicaetd computers called web servers. These web servers are permanently connected to the internet with a fixed IP address (an IP is a set of numbers which represent computers on the internet) and whenever a request is sent to them they give the web pages which are ohsted on them. But initially it was very difficult to remember the IP addresses of all the web pages, so they introduced a new system called Domain Name Service, in which a name is given to an IP address, like LahoreBiz.com.
Root Servers:
The DNS system is controlled by a group of very fast computers called Root Servers. A root server have a database in which it have an address of the name server on which your web site is hosted and your domain name and some other contact information. One way to check what information is stored on Root Servers about your domain is to find it through a Whois Service like at INTERNIC (http://www.internic.net/whois.html), just go there and type yourdomain.tld and click search and all the related information can be obtained.There are currently 13 root servers for global top level domains and majority of them are donated by Pantagon (as Internet is an extension of Arpanet which was initially developed by US Military and Univeristies).
What happens when you enter a web address on internet browser:
When we write a web address the browser like Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, Opera, etc. send a request to one of these root servers, which returns an address of the name server of your hosting service provider. The name server then looks in a DNS script to return the IP address of the web server where your web site is hosted and your web pages are placed and hence the web page is returned and is displayed in your browser.
How to get my own website:
To own your own website , first you need to make an entry in the database of root servers. For this there are companies called registerars which make the application to make the database update on the root server. Once this update is generated it propagates from one root server into another and may take upto 3 days to complete. This request usually contains a domain and TLD like LahoreBiz.Com (not the www.lahorebiz.com) and an address of primary and secondary name server where further information about the location of your web pages is placed. Information about any entry in Root Server Database can be fetched by searching in a Whois Service (http://www.internic.net/whois.html).
Next you find a hosting service on whom computer you put your web pages. The hosting service contains necessarily name server and one or more than one web servers. The name server contains information about which sub domain or domain is hosted on which web server and what is its IP. When you host your site to a web hosting company they give you a harddisk space to save your webpages, some services like CGI, etc. and they add necessary entries in the DNS script of their nameserver.
For more information please don't hesitate to contact our webmaster at sabih@lahorebiz.com
