Webserv

Webserv is a 42 project where you write your own HTTP server in C++. Find the subject here.

Our webserver uses the same non-blocking, event-driven architecture that nginx does. This allows the server to handle a high amount of requests with speed.
We use kqueue to handle the multiplexing, which means the server can only run on Mac machines.

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/mariadaan/webserv.git

Compile the webserver through the makefile:

make

Run executable (optionally with a configuration file, which should be located in the root/conf folder. No need to specify the path.):

./webserver default_server.conf

Or run with default configuration through the makefile:

make run

Configuration

The server can be configured using a config file. The path-to-config file has to be added while running the server. Possible configurations:

• Choose ports and servernames of virtual servers
• Set up default error pages
• Limit client body size
• Set up routes with following possible configurations:
  • Define accepted HTTP methods
  • Set up HTTP redirections
  • Define root directory
  • Turn on/off directory listing
  • Setup index files
  • Execute CGI based on file extensions (currently only supports Python)

Specific config file rules:

• All text that is not in a server block is not taken into account
• All text gets truncated when a ';' or '#' is encounterd
• Start of server block has to be written as "server {"
• In the server body: only the following words are handled: 'listen', 'server_name', 'root', 'location', 'client_max_body_size', 'cgi', 'error_page'
• In the location body: the following words are handled: 'index', 'request_method', 'upload', 'autoindex', 'redirect', 'client_max_body_size', 'root'
• All other words are not taken into account
• For the 'client_max_body_size' k/K are read as kilo (*1000) and m/M as mega (*1000000)

Resources

Visit this Notion page to read more about the components of a web server.

Our webserv team: Marius Pieter Maria