Web server, network ports and telnet

The server which was used as a DHCP server can also be used as a web server.

1. Click on the server and go to the services tab.
2. Click on HTTP service
3. Make sure both HTTP and HTTPS protocols are on.

Now, this server is also a web server. To access this web server, do the following:

4. Click on any PC and go to the Desktop tab.
5. Open Web Browser.

6. Type the IP address of the web server, 10.10.10.1 in this case and press Enter. A web page will load up.

Note: If only HTTPS is enabled in the web server, http://10.10.10.1 will not work. Only https://10.10.10.1 shall work.

Network ports

Processes in an operating system which need to communicate over a network use a network endpoint called ports. They basically identify a specific network related process in an operating system.

Servers are processes which use specific ports to wait for other processes to connect to them. Web servers by default, when using plaintext HTTP protocol, use port 80 while in secured HTTPS protocol, they use port 443.

Telnet

Telnet command can be used to test connectivity with a server port. For example, when HTTP is turned off and only HTTPS is turned on on the web server, we can use telnet to check port connectivity.

Click on PC and go to Command Prompt

Type the following commands to check connectivity on port 443 and 80 at 10.10.10.1:

telnet 10.10.10.1 443

telnet 10.10.10.1 80

The results show that port 443 is open while connection to port 80 was refused.