Accessing Your Server

The standard port for secure Web communications is port 443. The standard port for non-secure Web communications is port 80. After you've configured your machine according to the guidelines in this chapter, it will be set up to listen on one or both of the two standard ports. Therefore, you won't need to specify the port number in a URL.

However, if you've configured your server to listen on a non-standard port (i.e., anything besides 80 or 443), you'll need to specify the port number in every URL which is intended to connect to the server on the non-standard port.

For example, you may have configured your server so that you have a virtual host running non-secured on port 12331. Any URLs intended to connect to that virtual host must specify the port number in the URL. The following URL example will attempt to connect to a non-secure Web server listening on port 12331:

http://your_domain:12331

You should also remember that URLs which are intended to connect to your Red Hat Apache/SSL Server should begin with the https: protocol designator instead of the more common http: protocol designator. https: is the protocol designator for secure HTTP protocol communications.

Some of the example URLs used in this manual may need to be changed, depending upon whether you're accessing your Red Hat Apache/SSL Server or your non-secure Web server. Please view all URLs in this manual as general examples, not as explicit instructions that will work under all circumstances.