This project is a simplified HTTP web server written in C++.
It implements essential features of the HTTP/1.1 protocol, allowing clients (like browsers or curl) to communicate with the server.
The goal of this project is to understand how web servers handle connections, parse requests, generate responses, and manage multiple clients simultaneously.
The project emphasizes non-blocking I/O, poll-based event handling, and configurable server behavior through a .conf file similar to Nginx.
- Multiple server blocks defined in a configuration file
- Handling of HTTP/1.1 requests (GET, POST, DELETE)
- Support for multiple clients simultaneously
- CGI handling for dynamic content execution
- Error pages and status code management
- Persistent (keep-alive) connections
- Directory listing (autoindex)
- Chunked transfer encoding
git clone https://github.com/vallucodes/webserver.git
cd webserver
make -j./webserver
./webserver configs/default.confcurl -v localhost:8080
curl -X POST -F 'file=@test.txt' localhost:8080/upload
curl -X DELETE localhost:8080/file.txthttp://localhost:8080
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| I/O Multiplexing | poll() for non-blocking socket operations |
| Socket Programming | socket(), bind(), listen(), accept(), recv(), send() system calls |
| HTTP Parser | Custom parser for HTTP request headers, methods, URI, and body |
| Configuration Parser | NGINX-style config file parser with lexer and syntax validation |
| Server Architecture | Multi-server support with virtual hosting capability |
| Request Handling | State machine for processing HTTP requests (reading, parsing, executing, responding) |
| Response Generation | HTTP response builder with headers and status codes |
| CGI Execution | fork() and execve() for CGI process creation, pipe() for communication |
| File Operations | open(), read(), write(), close() for file serving and uploads |
| Chunked Transfer | Custom parser for decoding chuked request |
| Connection Management | Keep-alive connection handling and timeout mechanisms |
| Error Handling | Comprehensive error handling for all system calls and HTTP errors |
| Memory Management | Fd cleanup in case of error for leak prevention |
| Signal Handling | Shutdown on SIGINT and SIGTERM |
webserver/
├── Makefile
├── inc/
│ └── webserv.hpp # Main header aggregating all includes
├── src/
│ ├── main.cpp # Entry point
│ ├── server/
│ │ ├── Cluster.cpp # Manages multiple Server instances
│ │ ├── Server.cpp # Individual server object creation
│ │ └── HelperFunctions.cpp
│ ├── config/
│ │ ├── Config.cpp # Entry point to cfg reading
│ │ ├── ConfigExtractor.cpp # Parses config file
│ │ └── ConfigValidator.cpp # Validates config correctness
│ ├── parser/
│ │ ├── Parser.cpp # HTTP request parser
│ │ └── ParserUtils.cpp
│ ├── request/
│ │ └── Request.cpp # HTTP request representation
│ ├── response/
│ │ └── Response.cpp # HTTP response representation
│ ├── message/
│ │ └── AMessage.cpp # Base class for Request/Response
│ └── router/
│ ├── Router.cpp # Routes requests to handlers
│ ├── RequestProcessor.cpp # Processes requests through pipeline
│ ├── handlers/
│ │ ├── Handlers.cpp # GET, POST, DELETE handlers
│ │ ├── HandlerUtils.cpp # Handler helper functions
│ │ ├── CgiExecutor.cpp # CGI script execution
│ │ └── MultipartParser.cpp # File upload parser
│ └── utils/
│ ├── FileUtils.cpp # File operations
│ ├── HttpResponseBuilder.cpp # Response construction
│ ├── StringUtils.cpp # String manipulation
│ └── ValidationUtils.cpp
├── configs/
│ └── default.conf # Example configurations
├── www/
│ └── webserv_project/
│ ├── index.html
│ ├── upload.html
│ ├── cgi-bin/ # CGI scripts (.py, .js)
│ ├── errors/ # Custom error pages
│ └── uploads/ # Upload directory
└── test/
├── unit/ # Google Test unit tests
└── end-to-end/ # Python integration tests