INTERNET BASICS

SUTAPA BANIK
WHAT IS THE INTERNET ?
 The Internet is a network of networks of computers.
WHAT IS A NETWORK?

 A network consists of 2 or more computers

connected together, and they can
communicate and share resources (e.g.
information)
WHY NETWORKING?
• Sharing information — i.e. data communication

• Do you prefer these?

• Or this?

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 15-6

NETWORKING

 Computer network A collection of computing

devices that are connected in various ways in
order to communicate and share resources
Usually, the connections between computers in
a network are made using physical wires or
cables
However, some connections are wireless, using
radio waves or infrared signals
 INTERNET
 It might be helpful to think of the Internet as a vast system of
roads all connecting to each other. You may have heard the
term “information superhighway.” It’s a vast infrastructure of
pathways allowing computers to “talk” to each other, even
though the computers may use different operating systems.
They do this through unique identification numbers called
Internet Protocol Addresses (IP addresses).
 The abbreviation “www” stands for World Wide Web. Many
people think the World Wide Web is the same thing as the
Internet. It isn’t. While the Internet is a large connection of
networks (hardware), the World Wide Web is a way to access
the information on the Internet. It’s like the software you
need to run programs on the hardware of your computer. So,
the Internet is broader than the World Wide Web.
 INTERNET

 It is the largest network in the world that connects

hundreds of thousands of individual networks all
over the world.
 The popular term for the Internet is the
“information highway”.
 Rather than moving through geographical space, it
moves your ideas and information through
cyberspace – the space of electronic movement of
ideas and information.
INTERNET

 No one owns it
 It has no formal management organization.
 As it was originally developed by the
Department of defense, this lack of
centralization made it less vulnerable to
wartime or terrorist attacks.
 To access the Internet, an existing network need
to pay a small registration fee and agree to
certain standards based on the TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol) .
 THE USES OF THE INTERNET

 Send e-mail messages.

 Send (upload) or receive (down load) files
between computers.
 Participate in discussion groups, such as
mailing lists and newsgroups.
 Surfing the web.
 EVOLUTION
The concept of Internet was originated in 1969 and has undergone
several technological & Infrastructural changes as discussed below:

 The origin of Internet devised from the concept of Advanced Research

Project Agency Network (ARPANET).
 ARPANET was developed by United States Department of Defense.
 Basic purpose of ARPANET was to provide communication among the
various bodies of government.
 Initially, there were only four nodes, formally called Hosts.
 In 1972, the ARPANET spread over the globe with 23 nodes located at
different countries and thus became known as Internet.
 By the time, with invention of new technologies such as TCP/IP
protocols, DNS, WWW, browsers, scripting languages etc. Internet
provided a medium to publish and access information over the web.
PARTS OF THE INTERNET

 World Wide Web

 Telnet

 Email

 Ftp
 WHAT IS THE WORLD WIDE WEB?
 The World Wide Web is a hyperlinked network
of documents and other resources found on
the computers of the Internet.
 LOCATING RESOURCES

 In order for the WWW to be useful, we need a

way of referencing all the resourses available.
 URL

 What does URL stand for?

 Uniform Resource Locator
 URL

 What does a URL do?

 A URL allows every resource (e.g. HTML page,
image, sound clip etc.) on the WWW to have a
unique address.
PARTS OF A URL

 The protocol gives the method of communication

to be used. http is most common, but you may
see ftp as well.
PARTS OF A URL

 The domain name is the name of the computer

that has the resource you want.
 This computer is often called the host.
DOMAIN NAMES

 Domain names are broken down into different

levels.
 E.g. www.someaddress.com
 The top level domain name is com
 The second level domain name is someaddress

 The third level domain name is www

DOMAIN NAMES

 Host machines actually have IP (internet

protocol) addresses, not domain names.
 IP addresses have the form 255.255.255.255

 A series of Domain Name Servers keep lists

which map domain names to IP addresses.
PARTS OF A URL

 The port specifies the port number that the

server is listening to for requests.
 Port number is optional
 If not given, the default of port 80 is used.
PARTS OF A URL

 The exact path to the desired resource follows

the domain name (and port number if given).
 DIRECTORY AND RESOURCE PATH

 Different levels of a path are always separated

by forward slashes, regardless of the host
system.
 If multiple users are hosted on a system, the
first part of the path will be ~user
DIRECTORY AND RESOURCE PATH

 The last part of the path is the actual resource

desired, usually an HTML page.
 The extension for HTML files can be .htm or
.html (recommended)
 If no resource is given, the server will try to
display a page named index.html. If not found,
it may display a directory listing, if permitted.
DIRECTORY AND RESOURCE PATH

 A fragment identifier can be used to specify a

given part of an HTML page.
 E.g. the URL
http://www.someaddress.com/files/intro.html#part3
will show the page intro.html, starting with the
section labelled part3.
 This is useful for long documents.
PATHS

Since graphics are not embedded in web pages,

the location of the graphic is indicated to the
web browser with a path in HTML.
 PACKETS

 A message is broken up into small pieces

called packets, usually about 1 kb in size.
 Each packet recieves a header containing the
destination IP address, the sender’s IP
address, the total number of packets that make
up a message, and the sequence number of
that packet.
 SWITCHING

 Since the packets are individually addressed,

and numbered for sequence, they can be sent
and received in any order.
 This means that packets can be switched to
different routes to get to the destinations,
according to network traffic.
REQUEST/RESPONSE

 The HTTP protocol is set up to work in terms of

requests and responses.
 REQUEST/RESPONSE

 In a typical WWW example, you type in a URL in

your browser’s location window, and press
enter.
 Your browser then sends a message (request)
to a web server, asking for a given HTML page.
 The web server sends back the page, or a
reason it can’t comply (response).
 A TYPICAL INTERNET REQUEST
You type in a URL in your web browser
(http://www.test.com)
The web browser needs to know the IP address
that is assigned to this URL, so it makes a
request to a Domain Name Server (DNS). The
request gets passed along from one name server
to the next, until the address is found, or the
request times out.
 A TYPICAL INTERNET REQUEST

3. Once the browser has the IP address

(123.456.789.123), it can prepare the HTTP
request packets and send them to the server.
4. The message is divided into packets, which
can be addressed with the source and
destination IP addresses.
 A TYPICAL INTERNET REQUEST

5. The message packets are then sent on their

way.
6. From a dial-up connection, the first step is the
ISP.
7. The ISPs router looks at the destination
address, and if it can’t deliver the message, it
passes it on to another router, etc. until the
message reaches its destination.
 A TYPICAL INTERNET REQUEST

The message reaches its destination site, usually

a web server, which processes the request. It
then gets the requested page, if available, and
prepares a reply message, including the
requested information, and then divides it into
packets and sends it back to the originator of the
request.
 STANDARDS ON THE INTERNET/WWW

 Technical standards related to the Internet (e.g.

TCP/IP) are published as Requests for
Comment (RFCs). These are very technical,
detailed descriptions of the technology behind
the Internet.
 URL - www.ietf.org
STANDARDS ON THE INTERNET/WWW

 Standards related to the World Wide Web (e.g.

HTML) are set by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C)
 URL – www.w3.org

 Standards released by the W3C are not

necessarily implemented completely or in the
same way by different web browsers.
 SEARCHING THE WEB

 Search engines are necessary to even attempt

to catalogue the estimated 270,000,000 web
sites, with an estimated 7,000,000 being
added daily.
 IP ADDRESSES

 The current method of IP addressing uses 32

bit addresses, and we are quickly running out
of addresses
 Work is underway to introduce IPv6 or IPng,
which uses 128 bit addressing.
 IP ADDRESSES

 This will provide

340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,
768,211,456 addresses, which could give up to
3,911,873,538,269,506,102 addresses per
square metre of the Earth’s surface.
 WEB BROWSERS
A Web browser contains the basic software you need in order to find,
retrieve, view, and send information over the Internet.

This includes software that lets you:

Send and receive electronic-mail (or e-mail)
messages
worldwide nearly instantaneously.
Read messages from newsgroups (or forums) about
thousands of topics in which users share information
and opinions.
Browse the World Wide Web (or Web) where you can
find a rich variety of text, graphics, and interactive
information.
 FTP/TELNET

TELNET: The Internet allows computers to converse with each other over
networks. A telnet program allows us to log into a distant computer
almost as if we were actually sitting physically at that computer.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol allows us to transfer files between two different
computers on the Internet.
INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNET AND WEB
 WHAT IS WEB?
 The Web (World Wide Web) consists of information
organized into Web pages containing text and
graphic images.
 It contains hypertext links, or highlighted keywords
and images that lead to related information.
 A collection of linked Web pages that has a
common theme or focus is called a Web site.
 The main page that all of the pages on a particular
Web site are organized around and link back to is
called the site’s home page.
HOW TO ACCESS THE INTERNET?

 Many schools and businesses have direct

access to the Internet using special high-
speed communication lines and equipment.
 Students and employees can access
through the organization’s local area
networks (LAN) or through their own
personal computers.
 Another way to access the Internet is
through Internet Service Provider (ISP).
HOW TO ACCESS THE INTERNET?
 To access the Internet, an existing network need
to pay a small registration fee and agree to
certain standards based on the TCP/IP
(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol)
reference model.
 Each organization pays for its own networks and
its own telephone bills, but those costs usually
exist independent of the internet.
 The regional Internet companies route and
forward all traffic, and the cost is still only that of
a local telephone call.
 INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER (ISP)

A commercial organization with

permanent connection to the Internet
that sells temporary connections to
subscribers.
 Examples:

 Prodigy, America Online, Microsoft

network, AT&T Networks.
 HOW TO ACCESS THE WEB ?

 Once you have your Internet connection,

then you need special software called a
browser to access the Web.
 Web browsers are used to connect you to
remote computers, open and transfer files,
display text and images.
 Web browsers are specialized programs.

 Examples of Web browser: Netscape

Navigator (Navigator) and Internet Explorer.
CLIENT/SERVER STRUCTURE OF THE WEB

 Web is a collection of files that reside on

computers, called Web servers, that are located all
over the world and are connected to each other
through the Internet.
 When you use your Internet connection to become
part of the Web, your computer becomes a Web
client in a worldwide client/server network.
 A Web browser is the software that you run on your
computer to make it work as a web client.
HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE (HTML)

 The public files on the web servers are

ordinary text files, much like the files used by
word-processing software.
 To allow Web browser software to read them,
the text must be formatted according to a
generally accepted standard.
 The standard used on the web is Hypertext
markup language (HTML).
HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE (HTML)

 HTML uses codes, or tags, to tell the Web browser

software how to display the text contained in the
document.
 For example, a Web browser reading the following line of
text:
<B> A Review of the Book<I>Wind Instruments of
the 18th Century</I></B>
 recognizes the <B> and </B> tags as instructions to
display the entire line of text in bold and the <I> and
</I> tags as instructions to display the text enclosed by
those tags in italics.
ADDRESSES ON THE WEB : IP ADDRESSING

 Each computer on the internet does have a

unique identification number, called an IP
(Internet Protocol) address.
 The IP addressing system currently in use on
the Internet uses a four-part number.
 Each part of the address is a number ranging
from 0 to 255, and each part is separated
from the previous part by period,
 For example, 106.29.242.17
 IP ADDRESSING
 The combination of the four IP address parts
provides 4.2 billion possible addresses (256
x 256 x 256 x 256).
 This number seemed adequate until 1998.
 Members of various Internet task forces are
working to develop an alternate addressing
system that will accommodate the projected
growth.
 However, all of their working solutions require
extensive hardware and software changes
throughout the Internet.
 DOMAIN NAME ADDRESSING

 Most web browsers do not use the IP address t

locate Web sites and individual pages.
 They use domain name addressing.
 A domain name is a unique name associated with a
specific IP address by a program that runs on an
Internet host computer.
 This program, which coordinates the IP addresses
and domain names for all computers attached to it,
is called DNS (Domain Name System ) software.
 The host computer that runs this software is called a
domain name server.
 DOMAIN NAME ADDRESSING
 Domain names can include any number of parts separated by
periods, however most domain names currently in use have
only three or four parts.
 Domain names follow hierarchical model that you can follow
from top to bottom if you read the name from the right to the
left.
 For example, the domain name gsb.uchicago.edu is the
computer connected to the Internet at the Graduate School of
Business (gsb), which is an academic unit of the University of
Chicago (uchicago), which is an educational institution (edu).
 No other computer on the Internet has the same domain
name.
 UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATORS
 The IP address and the domain name each identify a
particular computer on the Internet.
 However, they do not indicate where a Web page’s HTML
document resides on that computer.
 To identify a Web pages exact location, Web browsers rely on
Uniform Resource Locator (URL).
 URL is a four-part addressing scheme that tells the Web
browser:
 What transfer protocol to use for transporting the file
 The domain name of the computer on which the file resides
 The pathname of the folder or directory on the computer on
which the file resides
 The name of the file
STRUCTURE OF A UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATORS

pathname
protocol

http://www.chicagosymphony.org/civicconcerts/index.htm

Domain name filename

http => Hypertext Transfer Protocol

 HTTP

 The transfer protocol is the set of rules that the

computers use to move files from one computer to
another on the Internet.
 The most common transfer protocol used on the
Internet is the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
 Two other protocols that you can use on the Internet
are the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and the Telnet
Protocol
HOW TO FIND INFORMATION ON THE WEB ?

 A number of search tools have been developed and

available to you on certain Web sites that provide
search services to help you find information.
 Examples:
 Google  www.google.com
 Yahoo  www.yahoo.com
 Lycos  www.lycos.com
 AltaVista  www/alta-vista.com
 MSN Web Search  www.search.msn.com
HOW TO FIND INFORMATION ON THE WEB ?
 You can find information by two basic means.
 Search by Topic and Search by keywords.
 Some search services offer both methods, others
only one.
 Google offers both.
 Search by Topic
You can navigate through topic lists
 Search by keywords
You can navigate by entering a keyword or phase
into a search text box.