Webserver

A simple webserver written entirely in Rust.

If you just want to run the webserver, get the latest binary, set up a configuration file and run the executable.

Configuration

Configuration files are written in TOML.

Configuration file locations:

• Windows: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Webserver\config.toml
• Unix: /etc/webserver/config.toml

Ensure that a configuration file is in a supported location. If values aren't provided, defaults will be used instead.

Example config.toml

# Global configuration, which applies to all virtual hosts (currently, only global configuration
# is supported).
[global]

# The primary domain names, which are all treated as being identical to each other.
primary_domain_names = ["example.com", "www.example.com"]

# The port on which the server listens for incoming requests. Usually 80 for HTTP and 443 for HTTPS.
# Currently, HTTPS is unsupported.
port = 80

# A directory that contains one folder containing the primary domains' files, and one folder
# containing folders for each subdomain. This can be either relative or absolute.
parent_directory = "C:\ProgramData\Website"

# The name of the folder inside of the parent directory that contains the files that are served
# for the primary domains. This is where index.html for the primary domains would go.
primary_domain_folder_name = "primary_domain"

# The name of the folder inside of the parent directory that contains the folders for each subdomain.
# Each folder in here should have a name of a subdomain, inside of which index.html for that
# subdomain would go.
subdomains_folder_name = "subdomains"

# The default filename to retrieve if none is specified in the URL.
default_filename = "index.html"

# The default filename to retrieve if the requested file is not found.
not_found_filename = "404.html"

# The minimum amount of time that a request will be processed for before timing out.
# The actual processing time may be higher.
minimum_timeout_seconds = 5

# The initial buffer size, in kilobytes, that is allocated for each request.
initial_buffer_size_kilobytes = 16

# The maximum buffer size, in kilobytes, that is allocated for each request.
# If the request exceeds this size, it will be dropped without further processing and a
# 413 Content Too Large response will be returned.
maximum_buffer_size_kilobytes = 1024

Using the above example config.toml, the website folder structure could look something like:

C:/ProgramData/Website/         Example domains
├── primary_domain/
│   ├── index.html              (www.)example.com
│   ├── 404.html                (www.)example.com/hello
│   └── rust/
│       ├── index.html          (www.)example.com/rust
│       ├── hello.html          (www.)example.com/rust/hello.html
│       └── images/
│           └── index.html      (www.)example.com/rust/images
└── subdomains/
    └── shop/
        ├── index.html          shop.example.com
        ├── 404.html            shop.example.com/bread
        └── uk/
            ├── index.html      uk.shop.example.com | shop.example.com/uk
            └── 404.html        uk.shop.example.com/bread

Note

The webserver can't yet distinguish between an identical, but inverted, subdomain and path (e.g., uk.shop.example.com and shop.example.com/uk - both point to the same file). This may change in the future, as subdomain folders could themselves contain a subdomain folder.

Note that if your HTML contains relative links to other files, the URL path (before the query string, which begins with ?) may need to end with a forward slash so that web browsers treat the final element as a folder instead of a resource/file.

Coding

If you want to modify the code yourself, follow the below steps:

1. Install Rust. You can find instructions on how to do this here.
2. Install an IDE of your choice (such as Visual Studio Code with the rust-analyzer and CodeLLDB extensions)
3. Clone the repository to your computer.
4. Open the repository in your IDE and begin writing!

Building

To create an executable file, build the code by running:

cargo build

By default, the dev profile will be used, which has quicker build times, but the resulting executable will be slower.

To build a more optimised executable, run:

cargo build --release

For more information on building, visit the Cargo Book.

Testing

Unit tests are inside the file that they are testing. Integration tests are in the tests folder, on the same level as the src folder.

You can run all tests using:

cargo test

To run only library tests, run:

cargo test --lib

To run only doc tests, run:

cargo test --doc

For more information on running tests, visit the Cargo Book.