The process involves the browser, your computer’s operating system, your internet service provider, the server where you host the site, and the services running on that server.
𝟭. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 𝗵𝘁𝘁𝗽𝘀://𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲.𝗰𝗼𝗺/𝗽𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿
Here, https:// is a scheme, which tells the browser to make a connection to the server using TLS. somewebsite.com is the domain name of the site and it points to a specific IP address of a server. And /page is a path to the resource you need.
𝟮. 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝘂𝗽 𝗜𝗣 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻
After you’ve typed the URL into your browser and pressed enter, the browser needs to figure out which server on the Internet to connect to. It must look for the IP address of the server hosting the website using the domain you typed to accomplish that. DNS lookup is used to do this. Here, it determines whether we can locate it in the cache; if not, DNS must search domain name servers from the root to the third level.
𝟯. 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗧𝗖𝗣 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿
Transmission control protocol, more formally known as TCP, is used throughout the public Internet routing infrastructure to route packets from a client browser request through the router, the Internet service provider, through an internet exchange to switch ISPs or networks, and finally to find the server with the IP address to connect to. This is an inefficient oute to take to get there. Instead, a lot of websites employ a CDN to cache both static and dynamic material closer to the browser.
𝟰. 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗧𝗧𝗣 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿
Now that the browser is connected to the server, it complies with the HTTP(s) protocol’s requirements for communication. To request the contents of the page, the browser first sends an HTTP request to the server. The body, headers, and request line of an HTTP request are all present. The server can determine what the client wants to do using the information in the request line.
𝟱. 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲
The server accepts the request and determines how to handle it depending on the data in the request line, headers, and body. The server receives the material at this URL for the GET /page/ HTTP/1.1 requests, builds the response, and then delivers it back to the client with an HTTP status code.
𝟲. 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁
The browser examines the response headers for instructions on how to render the resource after receiving the server’s response. The Content-Type header informs the browser that an HTML resource was received in the response body.
Image credits: @manekinekko.