Introduction to Web Technologies

HTTP & FTP

Theory

HTTP
HyperText Transfer Protocol is a set of standards that allow
users of the World Wide Web to exchange information found
on web pages. When accessing any web page entering http://
in front of the address tells the browser to communicate over
HTTP. For example, the URL for Studyleague is
http://www.studyleague.com. Today's browsers no longer
require HTTP in front of the URL since it is the default method
of communication. However, it is kept in browsers because of
the need to separate protocols such as FTP.

HTTP commands:
1. GET: GET is the most common HTTP method; it says "give
me this resource". The semantics of the GET method
changes to a conditional GET if the request message
includes an If-Modified-Since header field. A conditional
GET method requests that the identified resource be
transferred only if it has been modified since the date
given by the If-Modified-Since header. This is specially
useful for proxies that keep a cache memory.
2. HEAD: This method is used for retrieving metainformation written in response headers, without
transferring entire content.
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Introduction to Web Technologies

HTTP & FTP

Theory

3. POST: POST sends data to be processed to a specific

resource. It is often used with HTML forms. POST can be
used for submitting some information and also for
updating some information in the database.
4. PUT: It is used to create or update. The PUT method
requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the
supplied Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers to an
already existing resource, the enclosed entity should be
considered as a modified version of the one residing on
the server and if the Request-URI does not point to an
existing resource then the server can create a new
resource with that URI.
5. DELETE: It is used for deleting a specific resource in the
server.
6. OPTION: OPTION returns th HTTP methods that the
server supports for a specified URL.
7. CONNECT: It converts the request connection to a
transparent TCP/IP tunnel. The client asks an HTTP Proxy
server to forward the TCP connection to the desired
destination. The server then proceeds to make the

Introduction to Web Technologies

HTTP & FTP

Theory

connection on behalf of the client. Once the connection

has been established by the server, the Proxy server
continues to proxy the TCP stream to and from the client.

FTP
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol
used to transfer computer files between a client and server on
a computer network. It is an open protocol standard that is
widely used to transport and receive large files.

How FTP works?

TCP and IP are the two major protocols that keep the internet
running smoothly. TCP manages data transfer while IP directs
traffic to internet addresses. FTP is an underling of TCP and
shuttles files back and forth between FTP server and FTP
client. Because FTP requires that two ports be open (the
server's and the client's) it facilitates the exchange of large
files of information.

FTP clients like WinSCP for Windows or Cyberduck for

Macintosh can be used to connect an anonymous FTP site or it
can be also done using FTP commands in Windows, Mac OS X,
or Unix.
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Introduction to Web Technologies

HTTP & FTP

To transfer files using anonymous FTP we need to enter

anonymous as username and arbitrary password to login.
Once login is successful we can establish the connection to
browse the public directories on the site.

Theory