42-webserv

This repository contains one of my projects of the core curriculum at 42 Heilbronn, done together with tjensen and hepple.

The project webserv is about implementing an HTTP web server in C++. As with all C++ projects at 42 Heilbronn, the code has to be written according to the C++98 standard.

Description

The task in this project is to write a web server with several features, based on the HTTP/1.1 standard. The requirements include:

• config file (user-provided or default)
• i/o multiplexing using poll(), select(), kqueue(), or equivalent
• CGIs
• file upload
• HTTP/1.1 methods GET, POST, and DELETE
• accurate HTTP response status codes
• serve fully static websites
• directory listing
• chunked requests
• cookies and basic session management (bonus)

The behavior of nginx is to be considered as a general reference.

Approach

As a general approach, we decided to do a lot of testing with nginx to get a good overview of the required behavior. To make sure we followed the HTTP/1.1 standard, we followed the guidelines provided in the HTTP/1.1 RFC.

For input/output multiplexing, we decided to use kqueue. The downside of this is that our web server is only running on macOS.

In terms of the config file, we kept close to nginx. Supported options include:

• set hostname
• turn directory listing on or off
• set an index file
• allow specific HTTP methods
• CGI setup
• set maximum body size for requests
• set custom error pages

We chose to handle the methods POST and DELETE by CGI.

How to Use

Clone this repository:

git clone https://github.com/hepple42/42-webserv.git

Change to the cloned directory and build the project:

cd 42-webserv && make

Run the server with our default config file:

./build/webserv

Alternatively, specify a custom config file:

./build/webserv [config_file_path]

Basic Tests

Some basic tests for evaluation.

Hostname Resolving

curl --resolve example.com:80:127.0.0.1 http://example.com/
curl --resolve test.com:80:127.0.0.1 http://test.com/

Client Max Body Size

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" --data "YES" http://localhost/php/empty.php
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" --data "NONONO" http://localhost/php/empty.php

Requests

curl -v -X GET http://localhost:4242
curl -v -X POST -H "Content-Type: text/plain" --data "YES" http://localhost/php/empty.php
curl -v -X DELETE -d 'filename=Makefile' 'http://localhost/delete/delete_file.py'
curl -v -X OPTIONS http://localhost:4242
curl -v -X UNKNOWN http://localhost:4242

File Upload

curl -F 'filename=@Makefile' http://localhost/upload/save_file.py
curl -v -X GET http://localhost/upload/uploads/Makefile
curl -v -X DELETE -d 'filename=Makefile' 'http://localhost/delete/delete_file.py'

Siege

siege -b -c10 -r1 http://localhost:80/empty
siege -b -c10 -r1 http://localhost:80/test.py