Web Servers - Features
There's a common set of features that you'll find on most web servers. Because web servers are built specifically to host websites, their features are typically focussed around setting up and maintaining a website's hosting environment.
Most web servers have features that allow you to do the following:
- Create one or more websites. (No I don't mean build a set of web pages. What I mean is, set up the website in the web server, so that the website can be viewed via HTTP)
- Configure log file settings, including where the log files are saved, what data to include on the log files etc. (Log files can be used to analyse traffic etc)
- Configure website/directory security. For example, which user accounts are/aren't allowed to view the website, which IP addresses are/aren't allowed to view the website etc.
- Create an FTP site. An FTP site allows users to transfer files to and from the site.
- Create virtual directories, and map them to physical directories
- Configure/nominate custom error pages. This allows you to build and display user friendly error messages on your website. For example, you can specify which page is displayed when a user tries to access a page that doesn't exist (i.e. a "404 error").
- Specify default documents. Default documents are those that are displayed when no file name is specified. For example, if you open "http://localhost", which file should be displayed? This is typically "index.html" or similar but it doesn't need to be. You could nominate "index.cfm" if your website is using ColdFusion. You could also nominate a 2nd choice (in case there is no index.cfm file), and a 3rd choice, and so on.
Web Servers - Advantages
There are many advantages to using a web server within your development environment. Of course, in a production hosting environment, a web server is essential. And, depending on your website, a web server could indeed be essential in your development environment.
When I say "development environment", I'm referring to a copy of your website, usually on your local machine, that you use to perform updates before you commit them to the live (production) environment.
In practice, you could have many copies of your website for different purposes (such as testing, training, protypes etc), but let's just call it "development environment" for now.
Here are some advantages of using a web server within your development environment:
- Your local website behaves more like the live one. For example, you can configure directory security, test your custom error pages etc before commiting them to the production environment.
- You can use server-side scripting languages such as PHP and ColdFusion.
- Allows you to standardize your coding. For example, you can use root-relative paths for your image references and hyper links (i.e. "/directory/image.gif"). In other words, your paths can represent the website structure, rather than the directory structure of your computer.
- Knowledge. The knowledge you gain from using your own web server will help you understand how it works in the live environment. This will most certainly help you when you need to communicate with your hosting provider - you'll be able to use terminology that makes it easier for them to understand your request/issue.
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