Course

WEB Protocols

HTTP/1.1 to HTTP/3, DNS, TLS, CDN, CORS, WebSockets — the plumbing that powers every web application. Understand how the web actually works under the hood.

8 lessons120 min total

Curriculum

8 parts in 5 phases

Foundation2 lessons · 28 min

fundLesson 1Beginner

HTTP/1.1 Fundamentals

Methods, headers, status codes, keep-alive, content negotiation, caching headers, chunked transfer encoding, and the request-response cycle. The protocol that defined the web.

HTTPProtocol

14 min

fundLesson 2Beginner

HTTP/2 & HTTP/3

Binary framing, multiplexing, server push, HPACK header compression, QUIC transport, 0-RTT handshake, and the evolution from HTTP/1.1 pipelining to HTTP/3 connection migration.

HTTP/2HTTP/3QUIC

14 min

Offense · Core techniques2 lessons · 30 min

coreLesson 3Beginner

DNS Deep Dive

Resolution hierarchy, record types (A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS), caching and TTL, EDNS, DNSSEC, DNS-over-HTTPS, zone transfers, and how DNS underpins every web request.

DNSProtocolInfrastructure

14 min

coreLesson 4Intermediate

TLS & SSL

Handshake protocol, certificate chains, cipher suites, forward secrecy, mutual TLS, OCSP stapling, HSTS, and why outdated TLS versions are one of the most common production misconfigurations.

TLSSSLCryptography

16 min

Offense · Deep extraction2 lessons · 28 min

deepLesson 5Beginner

CDN & Caching

Edge servers, cache headers (Cache-Control, ETag, Last-Modified), cache invalidation strategies, CDN origin shielding, reverse proxies, Varnish, and how Cloudflare/Fastly make the web fast.

CDNCachingPerformance

14 min

deepLesson 6Intermediate

CORS & Same-Origin Policy

The same-origin policy, cross-origin requests, simple vs preflight requests, CORS headers (Access-Control-Allow-Origin, -Methods, -Credentials), and common CORS misconfigurations.

CORSSOPSecurity

14 min

Discovery & Defense1 lesson · 14 min

defLesson 7Intermediate

WebSockets & Real-Time

WebSocket handshake and framing, Socket.IO, Server-Sent Events, connection lifecycle, keepalive mechanisms, backpressure handling, and the differences between each real-time protocol.

WebSocketSSEReal-time

14 min

Real-world & Review1 lesson · 20 min

capsLesson 8Beginner

Web Protocols Review

A comprehensive walk through the full request lifecycle: DNS resolution, TCP/TLS handshake, HTTP request, CDN routing, origin processing, WebSocket upgrade, and everything in between.

HTTPDNSTLS

20 min