Host Talk
27 explainers about the parts of the web that most people use daily and rarely think about. Each stands on its own.
What actually happens when you type a URL
You type a web address, press Enter, and a page shows up. It feels instant, which is a little unfair to everything that...
Host TalkShared, VPS, dedicated and cloud: what actually differs
Hosting plans are named in a way that suggests a ladder, with shared at the bottom and dedicated at the top. In...
Host TalkWhy a padlock does not mean a site is trustworthy
Many people were taught, sensibly at the time, to look for the padlock before typing a password. The advice was good in...
Host TalkWhat DNS propagation really is (and what it isn't)
The word propagation suggests that when you change a DNS record, the update is pushed outward across the internet like...
Host TalkWhy email is the hardest part of hosting
If you ask people who run websites for a living what gives them the most grief, many will say email. A website either...
Host TalkCaching, layer by layer
Nearly every speed improvement on the web is some form of "do not do that work again." Caching is the practice of...
Host TalkWhat a control panel actually does
A hosting control panel is a web interface for tasks that would otherwise need a terminal. Behind the buttons sit...
Host TalkWhy your site slows down at 3 p.m.
A common support ticket reads something like: the site is fast in the morning and crawls in the afternoon, nothing has...
Host TalkIP addresses, and why there are two kinds
Every device that talks to the internet needs an address, and for decades that meant IPv4: four numbers between 0 and...
Host TalkPorts: why the web lives on 80 and 443
An IP address finds a machine. A port number finds the program on that machine. Think of the address as a building and...
Host TalkWhat a web server actually does
A web server is a program that waits for requests and answers them. The two names you will meet most are Apache and...
Host TalkPHP-FPM, and why your pages wait in line
Most WordPress sites run on PHP, and PHP does not run inside the web server any more. Modern setups use PHP-FPM, a...
Host TalkThe database behind your website
A WordPress page is not a file. Your posts, comments, settings and menus live in a database, usually MySQL or MariaDB...
Host TalkWhen a CDN helps, and when it gets in the way
A content delivery network sits between your visitors and your server. It keeps copies of your files in many locations...
Host TalkThe TLS handshake in slow motion
Before a browser sends your password to a website, the two sides have to agree on how to scramble the conversation, and...
Host TalkCertificate authorities and how browsers decide who to trust
Your browser has never heard of most websites, yet it decides within milliseconds whether to trust their certificates....
Host TalkHow automatic certificate renewal works
Automatic renewal sounds like magic, but the mechanism is simple: a program proves to a certificate authority that it...
Host TalkRedirects: 301, 302 and the chains between
A redirect is a server saying "not here, go there". The browser follows without you noticing. They are essential...
Host TalkCookies, sessions and why logins fight with caches
The web is stateless by design. Each request arrives with no memory of the previous one. Cookies are how sites add...
Host TalkWhat time to first byte actually measures
Speed tests report a number called time to first byte, or TTFB. It is the delay between the browser sending a request...
Host TalkReading an access log
Your web server writes down every request it handles. This file, the access log, is the most reliable account of what...
Host TalkReading an error log without panic
When a page shows a blank screen or a bare "500", the useful message is almost never on the page. It is in the error...
Host TalkSSH, SFTP and keys: moving files and running commands safely
FTP is older than the web and sends passwords in plain text. It is still offered by many hosts, and it should be...
Host TalkCron jobs and the strange case of WP-Cron
Cron is the scheduler built into Unix-like systems. You give it a command and a time pattern, and it runs the command...
Host TalkFirewalls and WAFs: what they stop and what they do not
People use the word firewall for several different things, and mixing them up leads to false confidence. There are two...
Host TalkBackups: full, incremental, snapshots and the 3-2-1 rule
A backup is a copy you can restore from. Everything else is detail, but the details decide whether the copy saves you.
Host TalkWho actually owns a domain, and how transfers work
You do not buy a domain the way you buy a chair. You register the right to use a name for a period, up to ten years at...