I have been asked this question quite a number of times so rather than repeat the same answer over continually I am writing this article. If you have ever asked this question or wondered about it then this article is for you. Together we will explore the answer to this question and by the end you should know enough to answer the question when someone poses it to you or at least you can point them to this article for further study.
The foundation every web server is built upon is a basic computer. Depending on the intended use of the web server, the computer could be something as basic as a laptop or workstation that you would use in your home or office or it could be a large enterprise equipped server or anywhere in between. The key to it all is having an operating system that is capable of being used in a web server environment. There are many operating systems out there that handle this purpose but do not think all of them can. For instance, Windows XP Home edition is not able to be used in a web server environment but Windows XP Professional edition is.
The component that is added on top of the computer is a piece of software called web server software. There are a number of different web server software packages each having their own specific feature sets and unique abilities that set them apart from the others. Some web server software packages are available for more than one operating system while others are targeted for a specific operating system and will not function on any other platform. The web server software offered by Microsoft is Internet Information Server or IIS for short and is targeted specifically for operating systems provided by Microsoft.
Once the web server software has been added to the computer you then have a ‘web server’. If you are running an operating system such as Windows XP Pro or Windows Vista or other yet to be released Microsoft workstation operating systems, your web server will be a private use type web server. This setup is geared for the occasional user or a programmer who is doing web application development and needs a way of testing out their work without having to load the application under development to an actual server class machine. If you are running an operating system such as Windows 2003 Server, your web server can potentially be used by many users depending upon the network configuration and user access rights.
The web server software is at the heart of what makes a web server work. The software accepts requests from the user returning back to them the information they asked for. In the early days this meant the user was asking for specific web pages which had static content and the web server software would return those pages back to the user. Present day web server software can still perform this functionality, but it can do a lot more as well. A programmer can create application specific code that works in tandem with the web server software to deliver full blown applications within a web browser. Without the web server software, there would be no way for the computer to process the users request and return back to them the information they were seeking.
This then is the general overview of what a web server is what it is comprised of, and how it works. I have used here in writing the same general explanation I give verbally whenever I am asked this question. Everything has been given in general terms because the specifics will vary depending upon your configuration of your chosen operating system and web server software along with its deployment as a single user developer setup or a publicly accessible web server.
Ira Richard Smith