A shared web hosting service is a

web hosting service A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing web h ...

where many

websites A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, education ...

reside on one

web server A web server is computer software and underlying Computer hardware, hardware that accepts requests via Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP (the network protocol created to distribute web content) or its secure variant HTTPS. A user agent, co ...

connected to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

. The overall cost of server maintenance is spread over many customers. By using shared hosting, the website will share a physical server with one or more other websites.

Description

The service usually includes

system administration An IT administrator, system administrator, sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administr ...

as it is shared by many users. This is a benefit for users who do not want to deal with it, but a hindrance to

power users A power user is a user of computers, software and other electronic devices who uses advanced features of computer hardware, operating systems, programs, or websites which are not used by the average user. A power user might not have extensive tech ...

who want more control. In general, shared hosting will be inappropriate for users who require extensive

software development Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

outside what the hosting provider supports. Generally, most applications intended to be on a standard web server work well with a shared web hosting service. On the other hand, shared hosting is cheaper than other types of hosting such as dedicated server hosting. Shared hosting usually has usage limits and hosting providers should have extensive reliability features in place. Shared hosting services typically offer basic web statistics support,

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

and

webmail Webmail (or web-based email) is an email service that can be accessed using a standard web browser. It contrasts with email service accessible through a specialised email client software. Additionally, many internet service providers (ISP) prov ...

services, auto script installations, updated PHP and

MySQL MySQL () is an Open-source software, open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A rel ...

, and basic after-sale

technical support Technical support, commonly shortened as tech support, is a customer service provided to customers to resolve issues, commonly with consumer electronics. This is commonly provided via call centers, online chat and email. Many companies provid ...

that is included with a monthly subscription. It also typically uses a web-based control panel system. Most of the large hosting companies use their custom-developed control panel or cPanel. Control panels and web interfaces can cause controversy however since web hosting companies sometimes sell the right to use their control panel system to others. Attempting to recreate the functionality of a specific control panel is common, which leads to many lawsuits over patent infringement.

Shared web hosting services

In shared hosting, the provider is generally responsible for managing servers, installing server software, security updates, technical support, and other aspects of the service. Most servers are based on the

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

(OS) and LAMP. Some providers offer

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

-based or FreeBSD-based solutions. Server-side facilities for either operating system have similar functionality (for example:

(database) and many server-side programming languages (such as the widely used PHP programming language) under Linux, or the proprietary SQL Server (database) and

ASP.NET ASP.NET is a server-side web-application framework designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. It was developed by Microsoft to allow programmers to build dynamic web sites, applications and services. The name stands for Ac ...

programming language under Microsoft Windows. There are thousands of shared hosting providers in the world, although the exact number is unknown. They range from "mom-and-pop shops" and small design firms to multimillion-dollar providers with hundreds of thousands of customers. Shared web hostingUnlimited Shared Hosting
/ref> can also be done privately by sharing the cost of running a server in a colocation center; this is called cooperative hosting.

Implementation

Shared web hosting can be accomplished in two ways: name-based and

Internet Protocol The Internet Protocol (IP) is the network layer communications protocol in the Internet protocol suite for relaying datagrams across network boundaries. Its routing function enables internetworking, and essentially establishes the Internet. IP ...

-based (IP-based), although some control panels allow a mix of name-based and IP-based on one server.

IP-based

In IP-based virtual hosting, also called dedicated IP hosting, each virtual host has a different

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

. The web server is configured with multiple physical network interfaces or virtual network interfaces on the same physical interface. The web server software uses the IP address the client connects to, to determine which website to show the user.

Name-based

In name-based virtual hosting, also called shared IP hosting, the virtual hosts serve multiple hostnames on a single machine with a single

. This is possible because when a

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

requests a resource from a

using HTTP/1.1 it includes the requested hostname as part of the request. The server uses this information to determine which website to show the user.

DNS and name servers

DNS stands for "

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed name service that provides a naming system for computers, services, and other resources on the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information ...

". The domain name system acts like a large

telephone directory A telephone directory, commonly called a telephone book, telephone address book, phonebook, or the white and yellow pages, is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization tha ...

and within is the master

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

, which associates a domain name such with the appropriate IP number. When the domain name is registered/purchased on a particular registrar's "name server", the DNS settings are kept on their server, and in most cases point the domain to the name server of the hosting provider. This name server is where the IP number (currently associated with the domain name) resides.

References

{{reflist Internet hosting IT service management Telecommunication services Web hosting