😺 HTTPD

😺 HTTPD is a lightweight, classic web server which can be used to serve static web sites. It supports a minimum subset of the HTTP 1.0 and 1.1 protocols. It features keep-alives, IPv6 and daemonization support. It is reasonably easy to use.

It was written in a few hours over a weekend, when the author was betting that he could write one in a small amount of time. It was meant to be a tiny version of an elaborate web server like Tomcat. Hence the name. 😉

How to Build

The distribution is very compact, and building the distribution is very easy.

$ make -C netlibmini
$ make -C phttpd

That's it. Now to launch the server, execute phttpd_s. If you are running on a privileged port, you will need to run as root. With default build settings, it runs on port 8080.

$ ./phttpd/phttpd_s

And then you should be able to test it like so:

$ curl --http1.0 localhost:8080

Unset SERV_PORT in Makefile to make it build it to run on port 80.

A sample rc.phttpd is provided in etc/ for those who wish to run the server at init / startup.

PHTTPD - Simple

The phttpd_s is the simplest server to use. When run from a particular directory, it serves files from the htdocs/ folder. If a file is not specified in the URI, it uses index.html. It does not do directory browsing, which is a feature, preventing people from trespassing into sensitive content.

For example, if you are running a site called spam.com, a directory structure would be like this:

htdocs/
       index.html                   Homepage
       images/                      Directory, not browsable
               logo.gif             Site logo
       users/                       Directory, not browsable
               index.html           Information about people
               bob/                 Bob's directory
                      index.html    Homepage
               alice/               Alice's directory
                      index.html    Homepage
                      favicon.ico   Alice's site icon

PHTTPD - Vhost

The phttpd_v server is a little more complex. It supports virtual hosting, a way by which multiple web sites can run from the same computer. When run from a particular directory, it serves files from the vhosts/<hostname.com> folder. The rules for directory browsing and default URI apply, as well.

For all the IP Addresses/Hostnames that you want your server accessed as, You are required to create directories/symbolic links as well as maintain their content as well.

For example, when hosting two sites called pam.com and sam.com, you will probably be using a structure like this:

vhosts/
        pam.com/                     
                index.html          Homepage of pam.com 
        sam.com/                     
                index.html          Homepage of sam.com 
                favicon.ico         sam.com's site icon

Additional Code

Many thanks to the following authors and projects:

• Toni Ronkko - Dirent for Visual C++

Limitations

The web servers are given away free, but with an accompanying DISCLAIMER. That is to merely protect the author from being sued (or exploited) but not an excuse to write lousy code. Any suggestions/bug reports/fixes would be most welcome.

Feedback

• Author: Karthik Kumar Viswanathan
• Web : http://karthikkumar.org
• Email : karthikkumar@gmail.com