Hypertext Transfer Protocol Explained

Nowadays, we all are well aware of the Internet and related terms such as
webpage, browser, etc. But the question is, have you ever thought of knowing
how a particular webpage gets loaded into a web browser? You type the
address, press enter and in a matter of a second, the webpage shows on the
screen. But what happens internally is quite complicated. When you open your
browser in search of particular content, you are indirectly making use of the
Hypertext transfer protocol.

In this article, we will discuss the immensely popular Hypertext transfer protocol,
commonly abbreviated as HTTP, which is the most important protocol used for
communication over the World Wide Web. When you request a web page by
typing its address into the search bar of your web browser, that request is sent
to the web server using HTTP.

So, before going into further details, let’s get some basic idea about what is HTTP
and the history associated with it.

What is HTTP

The Hypertext transfer protocol is a TCP/IP based, application layer

communication protocol, that is principally used to access and transfer data in
any form on the World Wide Web. HTTP is the foundation of any data
communication on the web.

It is a protocol for distributive, collaborative information systems and allows the

exchange of hypermedia documents containing hypertext, along with graphics,
audio, video, etc. in the form of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Hypertext
is a structured text that contains links, known as hyperlinks to other documents
or information.
It is a generic, stateless and connectionless protocol. HTTP uses the default
standard port 80 for establishing connections, but you can use other ports as
well.

History of HTTP

Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext that is transmitted using HTTP. In 1990,
HTTP was first introduced by Tim Berners Lee at the CERN laboratories. It was
developed along with HTML, having only a single method, GET, which would
request a page from a server and the response generated from the server was
always an HTML page.

In 1991, HTTP O.9, the first documented version of HTTP, was created. It was a
simple protocol for raw data transfer across the Internet. After that, HTTP 1.0
was founded by RFC 1945, which was an improved version of the earlier one as it
allowed messages to be in the format of MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions)-like headers.

The most commonly used version of HTTP, i.e., HTTP 1.1 was first defined by RFC
2068. In 2015, the latest version, HTTP/2 got standardized as RFC 7540. Now,
various web servers and browsers support HTTP/2 over TLS.

Characteristics of HTTP

By now, you know that HTTP is the fundamental protocol for data
communication on the Internet. But some features have helped in making HTTP
a robust protocol in comparison to other communication protocols, and they
have been explained in the below-mentioned points:-

1. Simple

Although with each newer version, more complexity has been added,
such as encapsulation of HTTP messages into frames in the latest HTTP/2.
 HTTP messages are simple in format and can be easily read and
comprehended by humans. Thus, it provides easier developer testing,
and reduced complexity for any new person.

2. Connectionless

When an HTTP client, usually a web browser tries to establish a

connection with the server, it disconnects itself automatically from the
server after sending the request and waits for a response. The server
after accepting and processing the request re-establishes the connection
with the client to post a response back in the form of a response
message.

3. Stateless

Although HTTP uses the services of TCP, it is a stateless protocol, i.e.,

there is no linkage between two or more requests being carried out one
after another on the same connection. The server and client have the
knowledge of each other only when an instruction is provided by the
client to connect. After that, the link between both of them disappears.
Because of this, the server sends the requested data without retaining
any session or state information about the client. Each request is
executed independently without having any association with the previous
ones.

4. Extensible

HTTP is an extensible protocol. HTTP headers defined in HTTP 1.0 version

made this protocol easy to extend and experiment further. Due to its
extensibility, it is also possible to add new functionalities by merely
creating an agreement between a client and a server regarding a new
header's semantics.
 5. Media-independent

HTTP is media-independent as it supports the transmission of

hypermedia documents. Hypermedia is an extension to hypertext that
also includes multimedia, i.e., graphics, audio, video, animation, etc. as
links to other contents. Any form of data can be communicated using
HTTP if both the browser and the web server know how to manage the
data content.

Architecture of HTTP

HTTP follows the client-server architecture, and it operates in the form of

request and response. The underlying architecture of HTTP has the following
components:-

 A client, or the User-agent

The client, also known as user-agent is a platform that works on behalf of

the user. Mostly, a web browser acts as the client but sometimes mobile
applications, web crawlers, etc. can also function as the HTTP client. The
primary role of a user-agent is to launch a connection to a server after
identifying what the user is searching for and initiate single or multiple
HTTP requests to the server accordingly.

 Server

The server is a computer program which serves HTTP requests after

accepting the connection, as requested by the client. Application software
running on a computer that is hosting the website may act as the web
server, for example, Apache web server. The primary role of a web server
is to respond to the request made by the HTTP client. Though virtually it
might look that a server is a single machine, it might be that the same
device hosts several other servers, i.e., a collection of servers.
  Proxy

In the middle of the request and response messages between the web
browser and the web server, there are various other machines and
devices, collectively termed as proxies, which perform functions like
relaying HTTP messages, caching, authentication, filtering, etc.

Working of HTTP

Now, we will be discussing the working of HTTP in details. When you try to
access any web page, you are supposed to include HTTP in front of the URL of
that page that informs the browser to communicate over HTTP.

HTTP defines a set of rules relating to how messages and other data should be
formatted and reciprocated between web servers and browsers. HTTP follows a
classical client-server architecture where the web browser acts as an HTTP client
and establishes communication with the web server that hosts the website,
termed as HTTP server to retrieve the webpage requested by a user. The client
opens a connection to make a request and waits until it receives a response from
the server.

HTTP Messages

The client and the server communicate in the form of messages, and not any
stream of data. The command transmitted from the client to the server is known
as a request. The contents of the requested file, webpage or other information
sent by the server to the client are called response message.

The basic format of the request and response messages is similar. An HTTP
request message consists of a request line, one or more header, and sometimes
a message body. The request line contains request methods, uniform resource
identifiers, and the protocol version. A response message comprises a status
line, and all other fields are the same as in the request message. A status line
contains the protocol version, numeric status codes and the related phrase in
text form.

HTTPS

Abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, HTTPS is an extension of

HTTP protocol employed for secure data communication over a computer
network and which uses HTTP on a connection encrypted by transport layer
security (TLS). It has made the exchange of information extremely secure on the
Internet.

Earlier, it was used majorly by banking websites, payment gateways, emails

where data that is sent and received needs to be highly secured. But now, it is
widely used in general instead of the original HTTP as it is not much secure. It
provides authentication support; secure data communication, and helps in
maintaining privacy. It protects the integrity of the data and also prevents the
data from the man in the middle attacks, eavesdropping, tampering, etc. Unlike
HTTP, HTTPS uses default port 443 for communication.

Conclusion

The hypertext transfer protocol is an easy to use protocol and has evolved
rapidly over time. Though its prime function is to make communication between
web browsers and web servers, it is also employed for other purposes, such as
name servers and distributed object management systems, by extending its
request methods, error codes, and headers. Nowadays, it is not necessary to
include HTTP in the front of the address of the web page, as it is added
automatically being considered to be the default protocol for communication on
the web.