Free ebookWeb Servers 101: How HTTP, DNS, TLS, and Reverse Proxies Work

Course Description

Web Servers 101: How HTTP, DNS, TLS, and Reverse Proxies Work is a practical ebook course for anyone who wants to understand what really happens when a browser loads a website. Designed for Information Technology learners in Web Servers and Cloud Computing, it turns everyday web behavior into clear mental models you can use to build, deploy, and troubleshoot modern applications.

You will follow the full web request response lifecycle from the moment you type a URL to the final page render, learning how origins are formed from scheme, host, port, path, query, and fragments. Along the way, you will see how DNS resolution translates names into IP addresses, how TCP connections create reliable channels through ports, and how HTTP messages move intent and data through methods, status codes, headers, and bodies. You will also understand how keep alive and connection reuse reduce latency across multiple requests and why performance and reliability often depend on these details.

Security is explained in plain language, covering HTTPS and TLS so you can reason about encryption, integrity, and identity without getting lost in jargon. You will learn how certificates and trust chains work, how browsers validate servers, and how the TLS handshake establishes session keys and uses SNI when multiple sites share infrastructure. This context helps you configure safer web servers, diagnose mixed content issues, and interpret browser security warnings confidently.

To connect concepts to real operations, the course explores reverse proxies as front doors for web servers and applications, including common load balancing patterns that distribute traffic and handle failures. You will gain troubleshooting skills using curl, dig, and browser DevTools to debug DNS problems, connection errors, HTTP misconfigurations, and TLS issues you are likely to encounter in production.

If you want a solid foundation for web server administration, cloud deployments, or backend development, start this course and learn to explain, optimize, and troubleshoot the web with confidence.