Apache: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition

How Apache Uses TCP/IP

Let’s look at a server from the outside. We have a box in which there is a computer, software, and a connection to the outside world — Ethernet or a serial line to a modem, for example. This connection is known as an interface and is known to the world by its IP address. If the box had two interfaces, they would each have an IP address, and these addresses would normally be different. A single interface, on the other hand, may have more than one IP address (see Chapter 3).

Requests arrive on an interface for a number of different services offered by the server using different protocols:

• Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP): news

• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP): mail

• Domain Name Service (DNS)

• HTTP: World Wide Web

The server can decide how to handle these different requests because the four-byte IP address that leads the request to its interface is followed by a two-byte port number. Different services attach to different ports:

• NNTP: port number 119

• SMTP: port number 25

• DNS: port number 53

• HTTP: port number 80

As the local administrator or webmaster, you can decide to attach any service to any port. Of course, if you decide to step outside convention, you need to make sure that your clients share your thinking. Our concern here is just with HTTP and Apache. Apache, by default, listens to port number 80 because it deals in HTTP business.

Port numbers below 1024 ...