A friendly guide to how the web actually works

Learn You
the Web

For Real This Time.

A tanuki with a backpack and a curly-maned shisa sit on a beach at sunset, surrounded by a small crowd of crabs.

Every time you open a web page, one computer asks another for something, and the other one answers. That’s the whole trick. Everything else (domain names, servers, proxies, padlocks, clouds) is armour bolted on over the years.

This book takes the armour off, one piece at a time. You’ll type real commands, read real conversations between machines, and by the end you’ll be able to put your own corner of the web online and understand every layer standing in front of it.

Start reading Table of contents

Contents

  1. Introduction In 1989 a physicist wanted to find his colleagues' notes. The rest of us got the web.
  2. Chapter 1: Asking for a Page The web begins when one computer asks another for something. Let's watch it happen.
  3. Chapter 2: Getting an Answer Every reply starts with a three-digit number, and the first digit tells you whose fault it is.
  4. Chapter 3: What's in a Name? Computers don't know what example.com means. Something has to translate, and that something is DNS.
  5. Chapter 4: The Place That Answers A server is a program that waits by a numbered door for someone to knock. You're about to run one.
  6. Chapter 5: Speaking Clearly HTTP is a language simple enough to type by hand, so let's type some.
  7. Chapter 6: Standing at the Door The server you talk to is often not the server that answers. Meet the reverse proxy, then run one.
  8. Chapter 7: Locks, Keys, and Quiet Conversations How two computers that have never met agree on a secret in public, and what the padlock does and doesn't promise.
  9. Chapter 8: When Things Get Busy What happens when everyone shows up at once, and the tricks (more servers, more copies, fewer questions) that keep the answers coming.
  10. Chapter 9: Running Your Own Corner A rented machine, a domain, four lines of config and a padlock: putting your own page on the web, step by step.