This project is a basic HTTP/1.1 server built from scratch in Python using the standard socket and threading libraries. The primary goal of this project was to learn the fundamentals of network programming, the HTTP protocol, concurrency, and low-level server operations without relying on high-level frameworks like Flask or Django.
It demonstrates how a server listens for connections, parses incoming HTTP requests, serves static files from a designated directory, handles multiple clients concurrently, and manages basic error conditions.
Disclaimer: This server is intended purely for educational purposes. It lacks many features and security considerations necessary for a production environment. DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION.
- Handles HTTP
GETrequests. - Serves static files (HTML, CSS, JS, images, etc.) from a
./webroot/directory. - Automatically serves
index.htmlif the requested path is a directory containing it. - Basic MIME type detection using the
mimetypesmodule to set theContent-Typeheader. - Basic security: Prevents directory traversal attacks trying to access files outside the
webrootdirectory. - Handles multiple client connections concurrently using Python's
threadingmodule (one thread per connection). - Basic HTTP error handling:
200 OKfor successful requests.403 Forbiddenfor directory access attempts (if noindex.html) or path traversal attempts.404 Not Foundfor requests to non-existent files.405 Method Not Allowedfor methods other thanGET.- Basic
400 Bad Requestfor malformed request lines. - Basic
500 Internal Server Errorfor unexpected server issues during request handling.
- Listens on a configurable host and port (defaults to
127.0.0.1:8080). - Graceful shutdown on
Ctrl+C.
- Language: Python 3
- Core Libraries:
socket(for low-level networking)threading(for concurrency)os(for file system interactions and path manipulation)mimetypes(for guessing file content types)
-
Clone the repository:
git clone [https://github.com/thomasaby/Python_HttpServer.git](https://github.com/thomasaby/Python_HttpServer.git) cd HTTP_server -
Ensure Python 3 is installed.
-
Navigate to the project directory:
cd HTTP_server -
Create the web root directory:
mkdir webroot
-
Place static files (e.g.,
index.html,styles.css, images) inside thewebrootdirectory. An exampleindex.htmlmight be:<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head><title>Test Page</title></head> <body><h1>Hello from HTTP_server!</h1></body> </html>
-
Run the server:
python server.py
-
The terminal will output the address the server is listening on (e.g.,
[*] Server listening on http://127.0.0.1:8080). -
Open your web browser and navigate to the address shown (e.g.,
http://127.0.0.1:8080orhttp://127.0.0.1:8080/your_file.html). -
To stop the server, go back to the terminal where it's running and press
Ctrl+C.
HTTP_server/ ├── server.py # The main Python HTTP server script ├── webroot/ # Directory containing static files to be served │ ├── index.html # Example file served for directory requests │ └── ... # Other static files (CSS, JS, images, etc.) └── README.md # This documentation file
- Socket Programming: Binding, listening, accepting connections (
socket). - TCP/IP Basics: Understanding client-server interaction over TCP.
- HTTP Protocol: Parsing request lines (Method, Path, Version), constructing status lines and headers (
Content-Type,Content-Length,Connection), understanding the request/response cycle. - Request Parsing: Extracting essential information from raw HTTP request text.
- File I/O: Reading local files (especially in binary mode
rb) to serve as response bodies. - MIME Types: Identifying file types for the
Content-Typeheader. - Concurrency: Handling multiple clients simultaneously using
threading. - Basic Error Handling: Implementing HTTP status codes like 200, 403, 404, 405, 500.
- Path Security: Basic prevention of directory traversal (
os.path,normpath).
- Educational Use Only: This server is NOT production-ready due to its simplicity and lack of robust security features.
- Security: Only implements very basic path traversal prevention. It is likely vulnerable to various other web security threats (e.g., certain types of denial-of-service, slowloris if not carefully managed, header injection vulnerabilities are not checked for, etc.). HTTPS is not supported.
- HTTP Compliance: Implements only a small subset of the HTTP/1.1 standard. Features like keep-alive connections, persistent connections, chunked transfer encoding, range requests, caching headers (
ETag,If-Modified-Since), and handling complex header scenarios are missing. - Performance: Concurrency via threading has limitations and overhead compared to asynchronous models (like
asyncio) or pre-fork models, especially under heavy load. - Robustness: Error handling is basic. It may crash or behave unexpectedly with highly malformed or malicious requests. Does not implement timeouts robustly.
- Implement support for other HTTP methods (e.g.,
POST,HEAD). - Add support for HTTPS/TLS using the
sslmodule. - Implement more robust request parsing (including headers).
- Add configuration options (e.g., via command-line arguments or a config file).
- Implement logging using the
loggingmodule. - Explore asynchronous I/O using
asynciofor potentially better performance. - Add support for more HTTP features (caching, keep-alive, etc.).
This project is open-source and available under the MIT License.
Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you’d like to change.
For any questions, feel free to reach out via GitHub or email me at: thomasaby34@gmail.com