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1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

Lecture



Other peoples correct answered (level of difficulty) 100% questions

First, let's remember how the Internet works from the browser side

What does the browser do?


The browser operation consists of the following stages

  • 1. DNS resolution
  • 2. HTTP exchange
  • 3. Rendering
  • 4.javascript work due to the event loop
  • 5. Reset and redo

1 DNS resolution


This process helps the browser know which server it should connect to when the user enters a URL. The browser contacts the DNS server and finds that google.com matches the set of numbers 1.52.201.130 - the IP address that the browser can connect to.

2 HTTP exchange


Once the browser determines which server will serve our request, it will establish a TCP connection with it and start an HTTP exchange. It is nothing more than a way for the browser to communicate with the server it needs, and for the server it is a way to respond to browser requests.

HTTP is simply the name of the most popular protocol for communicating on the web, and browsers mostly choose HTTP when communicating with servers. HTTP exchange implies that the client (our browser) sends a request and the server sends a response.

For example, after the browser successfully connects to the server serving google.com , it will send a request that looks like this

GET / HTTP / 1.1
Host: intellect.icu
Accept

Let's parse the request line by line:

  • GET / HTTP / 1.1 : with this first line, the browser asks the server to fetch the document from the location / , then adding that the rest of the request will be done over HTTP / 1.1 (or you can also use version 1.0 or 2)
  • Host: intellect.icu: This is the only HTTP header required by the HTTP / 1.1 protocol. Since the server can serve multiple domains ( intellect.icu , intellect.us, etc.), the Client mentions here that the request was for that particular host.
  • Accept: * / * : An optional header in which the browser tells the server that it will accept any response. The server can have a resource available in JSON, XML or HTML formats, so it can choose whatever format it prefers


After the browser, acting as the client, completes its request, the server will send a response. This is what the answer looks like:

HTTP / 1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private, max-age = 0
Content-Type: text / html; charset = ISO-8859-1
Server: gws
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode = block
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
Set-Cookie: NID = 134; expires = Fri, 11-Jan-2022 11:22:07 GMT; path = /; domain = .intellect.icu; HttpOnly
 

... ...


In the body of the response, the server includes a representation of the requested document according to the Content-Type header . In our case, the content type was set to text / html , so we expect HTML markup in the response - and that's what we find in the body of the document.

This is where the browser really shines. It reads and parses the HTML code, loads additional resources included in the markup (for example, JavaScript files or CSS documents can be specified there for loading) and presents them to the user as soon as possible.

Once again, the end result should be something that is readable by the average user.

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

If you need a more detailed explanation of what actually happens when we hit the enter key in the browser address bar, I would suggest reading the article "What happens when ...", a very meticulous attempt to explain the mechanisms behind this process.

Since this series is about security, I'm going to give you a hint of what we've just learned: Attackers easily make a living with HTTP communication and rendering vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities, malicious users, and other fantastical beasts can be found elsewhere, but a better approach to providing protection at these levels already allows you to make progress in improving your security posture.

In addition to fighting each other to increase their market penetration, vendors are also working with each other to improve web standards, which are sort of "minimum requirements" for browsers.

The W3C is the cornerstone of standards development, but it is not uncommon for browsers to develop their own functionality that eventually becomes web standards, and security is no exception.

For example, Chrome 51 introduced the SameSite cookies, a feature that allowed web applications to get rid of a specific type of vulnerability known as CSRF. Other vendors decided it was a good idea and followed suit, which led to the SameSite approach becoming the web standard: Safari is currently the only major browser without SameSite cookie support.

4. JS lifecycle concept

... Modern JavaScript engines implement / implement and significantly optimize this process.

Visual representation

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

For a better visual representation of the Event loop operation ,

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

Stack

Any function call creates an Execution Context. When a nested function is called, a new context is created, and the old one is stored in a special data structure called the Call Stack.

function f (b) {
  var a = 12;
  return a + b + 35;
}

function g (x) {
  var m = 4;
  return f (m * x);
}

g (21);

When g is called, the first execution context is created, containing the arguments to g and local variables. When g calls f, a second context is created with the arguments to f and its local variables. And that execution context f is pushed onto the call stack above the first. When f returns, the top item is removed from the stack. When g returns, its context is also removed and the stack is empty.

Heap

Objects are allocated on the heap. The heap is just a name to refer to a large unstructured area of ​​memory.

Queue

The JavaScript runtime contains a queue of tasks. This queue is a list of tasks to be processed. Each task is associated with some function that will be called to process this task.

When the stack is completely freed, the very first task is popped from the queue and processed. Processing a task consists in calling the associated function with the parameters recorded in this task. As usual, a function call creates a new execution context and is pushed onto the call stack.

Processing the task ends when the stack becomes empty again. The next task is removed from the queue and processing begins.

JS event loop

The event loop model is so named because it keeps track of new events in the loop:

while (queue.waitForMessage ()) {
  queue.processNextMessage ();
}

queue.waitForMessage is waiting for tasks to arrive if the queue is empty.

Run to completion

Each task is completed in full before the next begins to be processed. Thanks to this, we know for sure: when the current function is executed, it cannot be suspended and will be completely completed before the execution of other code (which can change the data with which the current function works). This distinguishes JavaScript from a programming language such as C. Because in C, a function running on a separate thread can be stopped at any time to execute some other code on a different thread.

There are also disadvantages to this approach. If the task takes too long, then the web application cannot process user actions at this time (for example, scroll or click). The browser tries to mitigate the problem and displays the message "a script is taking too long to run" and suggests stopping it. It is good practice to create tasks that execute quickly and, if possible, split one task into several smaller ones.

Adding events to the queue

In browsers, events are added to the queue at any time if an event occurs, as well as if it has a handler. If there is no handler, the event is lost. So, clicking on an element that has an event handler for the click event will add the event to the queue, and if there is no handler, then the event will not be added to the queue.

Calling setTimeout will add the event to the queue after the time specified in the second argument of the call. If the event queue is empty at that time, the event will be processed immediately, otherwise the setTimeout function event will have to wait for the remaining events in the queue to finish processing. That is why it is correct to consider the second argument to setTimeout not as the time after which the function from the first argument will be executed, but the minimum time after which it can be executed.

Zero latency

Zero latency does not guarantee that the handler will execute in zero milliseconds. A call to setTimeout with an argument of 0 (zero) will not complete in the specified time. Execution depends on the number of pending tasks in the queue. For example, the message `` this is just a message '' from the example below will be printed to the console before the cb1 handler is executed . This will happen because latency is the minimum amount of time it takes for the runtime to process a request.

(function () {

  console.log ('this is the start');

  setTimeout (function cb () {
    console.log ('this is a msg from call back');
  });

  console.log ('this is just a message');

  setTimeout (function cb1 () {
    console.log ('this is a msg from call back1');
  }, 0);

  console.log ('this is the end');

}) ();

// "this is the start"
// "this is just a message"
// "this is the end"
// "this is a msg from call back"
// "this is a msg from call back1"

Communication of several threads with each other

Web Worker or cross domain frame has its own stack, heap and event queue. Two separate event streams can communicate with each other only by sending messages using the postMessage method. This method adds a message to the other's queue if it accepts them, of course.

Never blocked

A very interesting property of the event loop in JavaScript is that, unlike many other languages, the thread of execution never blocks. I / O handling is usually done through events and callbacks, so even when an application is waiting for a request from IndexedDB or a response from XHR, it can handle other processes, such as user input.

There are well-known exceptions like alert or synchronous XHR, but it is considered good practice to avoid using them.

So, the browser works in the following sequence

Key pressed "i"

The following sections explain physical keyboard actions and OS interrupts. When you press the "g" key, the browser receives the event and the autocomplete features are enabled. Depending on the algorithm of your browser, if you are in private / incognito mode or not, you will be presented with different suggestions in the dropdown under the URL bar. Most of these algorithms sort and prioritize results based on search history, bookmarks, cookies, and popular Internet searches in general. As you type "google.com", many blocks of code are run , and the suggestions will be refined with each key press. It may even suggest "google.com" before you finish typing it.

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

Figure 2.1. Simplified keyboard layout

The "enter" key moves down.

To select a zero point, let's press the Enter key on our keyboard by clicking the bottom of its range. At this point, the electrical circuit specific to the enter key is closed (directly or capacitively). This allows a small amount of current to flow into the keyboard logic that scans the state of each rocker switch, removes the electrical noise from the fast intermittent switch, and converts it to a key code integer, in this case 13. The keyboard controller then encodes the key code for transmission to the computer. Nowadays this is almost universally done over a Universal Serial Bus (USB) or Bluetooth connection, but historically it is done over PS / 2 or ADB connections .

In the case of a USB keyboard:

  • The USB keyboard circuit is powered by a 5V power supply applied to pin 1 from the computer's USB host controller.
  • The generated keycode is stored in the internal memory of the keyboard circuits in a register called the "endpoint".
  • The USB host controller polls this "endpoint" every ~ 10ms (minimum value announced by the keyboard), so it retrieves the keycode value stored there.
  • This value is fed to the USB SIE (Serial Interface Engine) to be converted into one or more USB packets conforming to the USB low-level protocol.
  • These packets are sent with a differential electrical signal on pins D + and D- (middle 2) at a maximum speed of 1.5 Mbps, since a Human Interface Device (HID) is always advertised as a "low speed device". (USB 2.0 compliant).
  • This serial signal is then decoded on the computer's USB host controller and interpreted by the Universal Human Interface Device (HID) keyboard driver. The key value is then passed to the operating system hardware abstraction layer.

In case of virtual keyboard (as in touchscreen devices):

  • When the user places a finger on a capacitive touchscreen, a small current is transmitted to the finger (however, different types of sensors are possible - for example, capacitive, resistive). This closes the circuit through the electrostatic field of the conductive layer and creates a voltage drop at that point on the screen. screen controller Then causes interrupt reporting of the keystroke coordinate.
  • The mobile OS then notifies the currently focused application of a press event on one of its GUI elements (which is now the virtual keyboard application buttons).
  • The virtual keyboard can now trigger a software interrupt to send a key pressed message back to the OS.
  • This interrupt notifies the currently focused application of a key pressed event.

Interrupt operation [NOT for USB keyboards]

The keyboard sends signals in its interrupt request line (IRQ), which is converted to an interrupt vector (integer) by the interrupt controller. The site https://intellect.icu says about it. The CPU uses an Interrupt Descriptor Table (IDT) to map interrupt vectors to interrupt handlers that are provided by the kernel. When an interrupt arrives, the CPU indexes the IDT using the interrupt vector and starts the appropriate handler. Thus, the kernel is introduced.

(On Windows) WM_KEYDOWN message is sent to application

The HID transport passes the KBDHID.sys keypress event to the driver, which converts the HID usage to scan code. In this case, the scan code is VK_RETURN (0x0D). These KBDHID.sys driver interfaces with KBDCLASS.sys (keyboard class driver). This driver is responsible for safely handling all keyboard and keyboard input. It then calls Win32K.sys (after potentially passing the message through installed third-party keyboard filters). All this happens in kernel mode.

Win32K.sys figures out which window is the active window through the GetForegroundWindow () API. This API provides a handle to the browser address field window. Then the main Windows "message pump" SendMessage (hWnd, WM_KEYDOWN, VK_RETURN, lParam) calls. lParam is a bitmask that specifies additional information about keystrokes: number of repetitions (in this case 0), actual scan code (may be OEM dependent, but usually not for VK_RETURN), extended keys (e.g. alt, shift, ctrl) also pressed (they were not) and some other state.

Windows SendMessageAPI is a simple function that adds a message to the queue for a specific window handle (hWnd). Later, the main message handling function (called a WindowProc) assigned to hWnd is called to process each message in the queue.

hWnd The active window window () is actually an edit control, and WindowProc, in this case, has a message handler for WM_KEYDOWN messages. This code looks at the 3rd parameter that was passed to SendMessage (wParam) and since it VK_RETURN knows that the user pressed the ENTER key.

(On OS X) KeyDownNSEvent is dispatched to the application

An interrupt signal fires an interrupt event in the I / O set keyboard kext driver. The driver converts the signal into a keycode that is passed to the WindowServer to the OS X process. As a result, it dispatches the event to WindowServer to any suitable (eg, active or listening) applications through their Mach port , where it is placed in an event queue. Events can then be read from this queue by threads with sufficient privileges to call the mach_ipc_dispatch function. This is most often done and handled in the NSApplication main event loop using the NSEvent object of the NSEventType KeyDown.

(On GNU / Linux) Xorg server listens for keycodes

When using the X server GUI, the generic evdev event driver will be used to receive the X key press. Remapping keycodes to scan codes is done using X server-defined key layouts and rules. When the display of the scan code of the pressed key is complete, it X server sends the character to the window manager (DWM, metacity, i3, etc.), so the window manager, in turn, sends the character to the focused window. The graphics API of a window that accepts a character prints the corresponding font character in the appropriate focus field.

Definition of what was introduced. Is it a URL or a search term?

If no protocol or valid domain name is specified, the browser proceeds to feed the text specified in the address field to the browser's default search engine. In many cases, the URL has a special piece of text added to it to tell the search engine that it came from the URL bar of a specific browser.

Converting Non-ASCII Unicode Characters to Hostname

  • The browser checks the hostname for characters that are not in az, AZ, 0-9, -, or ..
  • Since the hostname is google.com, it won't exist, but if it were, the browser would Punycode the hostname portion of the URL.

Checking the HSTS list

  • The browser checks its "preloaded HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security)" list. This is a list of websites that have requested HTTPS-only communication.
  • If the website is on the list, the browser sends its request over HTTPS instead of HTTP. Otherwise, the initial request is sent over HTTP. (Note that a website can still use the HSTS policy without being on the HSTS list. The first HTTP request to the website from the user will receive a response in which the user sends only HTTPS requests. However, this single HTTP request could potentially leave the user vulnerable to downgrade attacks, which is why the HSTS list is included in modern web browsers.)

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

DNS lookup

  • The browser checks if the domain is in its cache. (to see the DNS cache in Chrome, go to chrome: // net-internals / # dns).
  • If not found, the browser calls the gethostbyname library function (OS dependent) to look up.
  • gethostbyname checks to see if the hostname can be resolved by reference in the local hosts file (which location is OS dependent) before trying to resolve the hostname through DNS.
  • If gethostbyname is not cached and cannot find it in the hosts file, it sends a request to the DNS server configured in the network stack. This is usually the local router or ISP's caching DNS server.
  • If the DNS server is on the same subnet, the ARP process network library for the DNS server follows below.
  • If the DNS server is on a different subnet, the network library matches the ARP processIP of the default gateway as shown below.

ARP process

To send ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) broadcasts, the network stack library needs a target IP address to look up. It also needs to know the MAC address of the interface that it will use to send ARP broadcasts.

The ARP cache is first checked for an ARP entry for our target IP. If it is in the cache, the library function returns the result: Target IP = MAC.

If the entry is not in the ARP cache:

  • A search is performed in the routing table to see if the target IP address is on any of the subnets in the local routing table. If so, the library uses the interface associated with that subnet. If this is not the case, the library uses an interface that is subnetted by our default gateway.
  • The MAC address of the selected network interface is searched for.
  • The network library sends a Layer 2 (OSI Data Link Layer) ARP request:

ARP Request:

Sender MAC: interface: mac: address: here
Sender IP: interface.ip.goes.here
Target MAC: FF: FF: FF: FF: FF: FF (broadcast)
Target IP: target.ip.goes.here

Depending on the type of equipment between the computer and the router:

Direct connection:

  • If the computer is directly connected to the router, the router responds with an ARP Reply (see below)

Hub:

  • If the computer is connected to a hub, it will broadcast the ARP request to all other ports. If the router is connected to the same "wire", it will reply with an ARP Reply (see below).

Switch:

  • If the computer is connected to the switch, the switch will check its local CAM / MAC table to see which port has the MAC address we are looking for. If the switch does not have an entry for the MAC address, it will relay the ARP request to all other ports.
  • If the switch has an entry in the MAC / CAM table, it will send an ARP request to the port that has the MAC address we are looking for.
  • If the router is on the same "wire" it will reply with an ARP Reply (see below)

ARP Reply:

Sender MAC address: target: mac: address: here
Sender IP: target.ip.goes.here
Target MAC: interface: mac: address: here
Target IP: interface.ip.goes.here

Now that the network library has the IP address of either our DNS server or the default gateway, it can resume the DNS process:

  • The DNS client sets up a socket for UDP port 53 on the DNS server using a source port above 1023.
  • If the response is too large, TCP will be used instead.
  • If the local DNS / ISP server does not have one, then a recursive lookup is requested that moves up the list of DNS servers until the SOA is reached, and if found, a response is returned.

Opening a socket (establishing a connection)

Once the browser obtains the target server's IP address, it takes that and the given port number from the URL (HTTP default is port 80 and HTTPS is port 443) and makes a call to the system library function named socket and requests a TCP socket stream - AF_INET / AF_INET6 and SOCK_STREAM.

  • This request is first sent to the transport layer, where a TCP segment is created. The destination port is added to the header, and the source port is selected from the kernel dynamic port range (ip_local_port_range on Linux).
  • This segment is sent to the network layer, which contains an additional IP header. The IP address of the target server as well as the IP address of the current computer is inserted to form the packet.
  • Then the packet enters the link layer. A frame header is added that includes the MAC address of the machine's network card as well as the MAC address of the gateway (local router). As before, if the kernel does not know the MAC address of the gateway, it must broadcast an ARP request to find it.

At this point, the packet is ready for transmission via:

  • Ethernet
  • Wi-Fi
  • Cellular data network

For most home or small business Internet connections, the packet will go from your computer, perhaps through your local network, and then through a modem (MOdulator / DEModulator) that converts digital ones and zeros into an analog signal suitable for transmission over telephone, cable etc. or connecting to wireless telephony. At the other end of the connection is another modem that converts the analog signal back into digital data, which will be processed by the next network node, where the sender and recipient addresses will be analyzed further.

Most large enterprises and some new residential connections will have fiber optic or direct Ethernet connections, in which case the data remains digital and is sent directly to the next network node for processing.

Eventually, the packet will reach the router that controls the local subnet. From there, it will continue to travel to the Autonomous System (AS) border routers, other ASs, and finally to the target server. Each router along the way extracts the destination address from the IP header and routes it to the appropriate next hop. The Time to Live (TTL) field in the IP header is decremented by one for each router passing through. The packet will be dropped if the TTL field reaches zero, or if the current router has no room in the queue (possibly due to network congestion).

This send and receive happens multiple times after the TCP connection stream:

  • The client chooses an initial sequence number (ISN) and sends a packet to the server with the SYN bit set to indicate that it is setting the ISN.
  • The server receives a SYN and if it is in a good mood:

    • The server chooses its own initial sequence number
    • The server sets a SYN to indicate that it is choosing its own ISN
    • The server copies (client ISN +1) into its ACK field and adds an ACK flag to indicate that it acknowledges receipt of the first packet.
  • The client confirms the connection by sending a packet:

    • Increases its own sequence number
    • Increases the recipient confirmation number
    • Sets the ACK field
  • Data is transferred as follows:

    • When one side sends N bytes of data, it increments its SEQ by that number.
    • When the other side acknowledges the receipt of this packet (or line of packets), it sends an ACK packet with an ACK value equal to the last received sequence from the other side.
  • To close the connection:

    • Closer sends a FIN packet
    • The other parties acknowledge the FIN packet and send their own FIN.
    • A closer one confirms the FIN of the other side with an ACK

TLS handshake

  • The client computer sends a ClientHello message to the server with its Transport Layer Security (TLS) version, a list of encryption algorithms and available compression methods.
  • The server responds to the ServerHello client with a message with the TLS version, the chosen cipher, the chosen compression methods, and the public server certificate signed by the CA (Certification Authority). The certificate contains a public key that will be used by the client to encrypt the remainder of the handshake until a symmetric key is negotiated.
  • The client verifies the server's digital certificate against its list of trusted certification authorities. If trust can be established based on the CA, the client generates a pseudo-random byte string and encrypts it with the server's public key. These random bytes can be used to determine the symmetric key.
  • The server decrypts the random bytes using its private key and uses those bytes to create its own copy of the symmetric master key.
  • The client sends a Finished message to the server, encrypting the transmission hash up to this point using a symmetric key.
  • The server generates its own hash and then decrypts the hash sent by the client to make sure it matches. If so, it sends its own message to the Finished client, also encrypted with a symmetric key.
  • From now on, the TLS session transfers application data (HTTP) encrypted with the negotiated symmetric key.

HTTP protocol

If the web browser you are using was written by Google, instead of sending an HTTP request to get the page, it will send a request to try and negotiate with the server an "upgrade" from HTTP to SPDY.

If the client uses the HTTP protocol and does not support SPDY, it sends a request to the form server:

GET / HTTP / 1.1
Host: intellect.icu
Connection: close
[other titles]

where [other headers] refers to a series of colon-separated key-value pairs, formatted according to the HTTP specification and separated by a single newline. (This assumes that the web browser being used has no bugs that violate the HTTP specification. This also assumes that the web browser is using HTTP / 1.1, otherwise it cannot include the Host header in the request and the version specified in the GET request or will HTTP / 1.0 or HTTP / 0.9.)

HTTP / 1.1 defines a "close" connection option for the sender to indicate that the connection will be closed when the response is complete. For example,

Connection: close

HTTP / 1.1 applications that do not support persistent connections MUST include a "close" connection option in every message.

After sending the request and headers, the web browser sends a single empty newline to the server indicating that the content of the request has been completed.

The server responds with a response code indicating the status of the request, and responds with a response in the form:

200 OK
[response headers]

This is followed by one newline character, and then the www.google.com HTML content payload is sent. The server can then either close the connection or, if the headers sent by the client requested it, leave the connection open for reuse for further requests.

If the HTTP headers sent by the web browser included enough information for the web server to determine if the version of the file cached by the web browser has changed since the last checkout (i.e., if the web browser has enabled the ETag header), it may instead respond with a request of the form:

304 Not changed
[response headers]

and no payload, and the web browser fetches HTML from its cache instead.

After parsing the HTML, the web browser (and server) repeats this process for every resource (images, CSS, favicon.ico, etc.) that the HTML page links to, except instead of a GET / HTTP / 1.1 request would be GET / $ (URL relative to www.google.com) HTTP / 1.1.

If the HTML links to a resource on a different domain, www.google.com, the web browser goes back to the steps for resolving the other domain and goes through all the steps up to that point for that domain. The Host request header will show the corresponding server name, not google.com.

Processing an HTTP server request

Server HTTPD (HTTP Daemon) is a server that handles requests / responses on the server side. The most common HTTPD servers are Apache or nginx for Linux and IIS for Windows.

  • HTTPD (HTTP Daemon) receives the request.
  • The server splits the request into the following parameters:

    • HTTP method request (or GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, CONNECT, OPTIONS, or TRACE). If you enter the URL directly into the address bar, it will be GET.
    • The domain, in this case google.com.
    • The requested path / page, in this case / (since no specific path / page was requested, / is the default).
  • The server checks for a virtual host configured on the server that matches google.com.
  • The server checks if google.com can accept GET requests.
  • The server checks if the client is allowed to use this method (by IP, authentication, etc.).
  • If the server has a rewrite module installed (for example, mod_rewrite for Apache or URL Rewrite for IIS), it tries to match the request against one of the configured rules. If a matching rule is found, the server uses that rule to rewrite the request.
  • The server receives the content matching the request, in our case it falls back to the index file, since "/" is the main file (in some cases this can be overridden, but this is the most common method).
  • The server parses the file according to the handler. If Google is running PHP, the server uses PHP to interpret the index file and feeds the output to the client.

Behind the scenes of the browser

After the server provides the browser with resources (HTML, CSS, JS, images, etc.), it goes through the following process:

  • Parsing - HTML, CSS, JS
  • Rendering - Build DOM Tree -> Render Tree -> Layout Render Tree -> Draw Render Tree
  • js event loop work

Browser

The functionality of the browser is to present the web resource of your choice by requesting it from the server and displaying it in the browser window. A resource is usually an HTML document, but it can also be a PDF file, image, or some other type of content. The location of the resource is specified by the user using a URI (uniform resource identifier).

How the browser interprets and renders HTML files is specified in the HTML and CSS specifications. These specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Internet standards organization.

Browser user interfaces have a lot in common with each other. Common user interface elements include:

  • Address bar to insert URI
  • Back and forward buttons
  • Bookmark options
  • Refresh and stop buttons to refresh or stop downloading current documents
  • Home button that takes you to the home page

Browser top-level structure

Browser Components:

  • User interface: The user interface includes the address bar, Back / Forward button, bookmark menu, etc. All parts of the browser are displayed except for the window in which you see the requested page.
  • Browser engine: The browser engine orders actions between the user interface and the rendering engine.
  • Rendering engine: The rendering engine is responsible for displaying the requested content. For example, if the requested content is HTML, the renderer parses the HTML and CSS and displays the parsed content on the screen.
  • Networking: The network handles network calls such as HTTP requests using different implementations for different platforms behind a platform independent interface.
  • UI backend: The UI backend is used to draw basic widgets such as combo boxes and windows. This backend provides a common platform-independent interface. Below are the methods of the operating system user interface.
  • JavaScript engine: The JavaScript engine is used to parse and execute JavaScript code.
  • Data storage: Data storage is a persistent layer. The browser may need to store all types of data locally, such as cookies. Browsers also support storage engines such as localStorage, IndexedDB, WebSQL, and FileSystem.

Parsing HTML

The rendering engine begins to receive the content of the requested document from the network layer. This is usually done in 8K chunks.

The main task of an HTML parser is to convert HTML markup into a parse tree.

The output tree ("parse tree") is a tree of DOM elements and attribute nodes. DOM is short for Document Object Model. It is an object representation of an HTML document and an interface for HTML elements to the outside world such as JavaScript. The root of the tree is the Document object. Before any manipulation with scripting, the DOM has an almost unambiguous relationship to markup.

Parsing algorithm

HTML cannot be parsed with regular top-down or bottom-up parsers.

The reasons:

  • The forgiving nature of language.
  • The fact that browsers have traditional error tolerance to support well-known cases of invalid HTML.
  • The parsing process is repeated. For other languages, the source is not changed during parsing, but in HTML, dynamic code (for example, script elements containing calls to document.write ()) can add additional tokens, so the parsing process actually changes the input.

Can't use normal parsing techniques, the browser uses a dedicated parser to parse HTML. The parsing algorithm is detailed in the HTML5 specification.

The algorithm consists of two stages: tokenization and tree building.

Post-parsing actions

The browser starts to receive external resources associated with the page (CSS, images, JavaScript files, etc.).

At this point, the browser marks the document as interactive and begins to parse scripts that are in "lazy" mode: those that need to be executed after parsing the document. The state of the document is set to completed and the loading event is fired.

Note that the HTML page never contains an invalid syntax error. Browsers fix any invalid content and continue.

Interpreting CSS

  • Parse CSS files,

1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

продолжение следует...

Продолжение:


Часть 1 1.6. Browser operation and Network structure serving the website.

See also


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Fundamentals of Internet and Web Technologies

Terms: Fundamentals of Internet and Web Technologies