Are Different Ports Reserved for Different Protocols in Web Servers?

[Chromium]

hey everyone,

i'm starting to learn how to use Apache, and so I've been reading up on web servers in general. I just have a few questions:

1) Different ports are reserved for different protocols, right? For example, HTTP is always done on port 80?

2) Network protocols (e.g. FTP, HTTP, etc.) just describe how two or more computers "communicate", right?

If anyone has any interesting and/or cool articles on web infrastructure in general, could you post the links here?

thanks,

--Jonathan

 

[story645]

Different ports are reserved for different protocols, right? For example, HTTP is always done on port 80?

Kind of, some mostly by convention. list, and not all ports are reserved. Port assignments and the lack thereof have all sorts of computer security implications.

Network protocols (e.g. FTP, HTTP, etc.) just describe how two or more computers "communicate", right?

Basically, but from a technical standpoint they're specifications for how data is packed,unpacked, sent, and received.

If anyone has any interesting and/or cool articles on web infrastructure in general, could you post the links here?

Some of the original DARPA documents concerning ARAPNET are pretty cool from a historical standpoint. Start at wiki.

 

[jtbell]

HTTP is always done on port 80?

No. Apache's httpd.conf file contains a directive that specifies which port that server runs on. Special-purpose servers often run on a different port from 80, one that doesn't conflict with anything else that server runs, of course. For example, administrative access to the mail server where I work is via a Web interface on port 8080 or 8100 or something like that.

 

[waht]

There is also HTTPS which is the secure version of HTTP. It runs on port 443.

Here is an interesting walk-through:
http://www.isecom.org/hackerhigh school.org/lessons/HHS_en3_Ports_and_Protocols.pdf