Webserv

Intro

The Webserv project involves creating your own HTTP server in C++ 98. The server must:

• Be able to process HTTP requests and serve responses.
• Allow testing with a web browser.
• Comply with specific requirements, ensuring stability and resilience.

HTTP is a foundational protocol for data communication on the World Wide Web, making this project invaluable for understanding web technologies.

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General Rules

1. Makefile:

   • Must compile source files without relinking unnecessarily.
   • Required rules: $(NAME), all, clean, fclean, re.

2. Compilation:

   • Use c++ with -Wall -Wextra -Werror flags.
   • Code must comply with the C++ 98 standard.

3. Preferred Practices:

   • Use C++ features over their C equivalents (e.g., <cstring> over <string.h>).

4. Prohibited Libraries:

   • No external libraries or Boost libraries are allowed.

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Mandatory Part

Program Requirements

• Name: webserv
• Files: Must include Makefile, headers (*.h, *.hpp), implementation files (*.cpp, *.tpp, *.ipp), and configuration files.
• Execution: ./webserv [configuration file]
• External Functions:
  • Allowed: execve, dup, dup2, pipe, strerror, gai_strerror, errno, fork, socketpair, htons, htonl, ntohs, ntohl, select, poll, epoll (and variants), kqueue (and variants), socket, accept, listen, send, recv, chdir, bind, connect, getaddrinfo, freeaddrinfo, setsockopt, getsockname, fcntl, close, read, write, waitpid, kill, signal, access, stat, open, opendir, readdir, and closedir.

Functional Requirements

1. Core Features:

   • Handle HTTP methods: GET, POST, and DELETE.
   • Serve a fully static website.
   • Enable file uploads.
   • Default error pages if none are provided.
   • Compatibility with modern web browsers.

2. Behavior:

   • Must be non-blocking and use only one poll() (or equivalent) for all I/O operations.
   • Ensure accurate HTTP response status codes.
   • Stress-test the server to guarantee availability under load.
   • Support listening on multiple ports.

3. Restrictions:

   • Cannot use fork for purposes other than CGI execution.
   • Must unchunk chunked requests for CGI processing.

Configuration File

• Define ports and hosts for servers.
• Specify server names (optional).
• Set up default error pages and client body size limits.
• Define route-specific settings, such as:
  • Accepted HTTP methods.
  • HTTP redirection rules.
  • Directory/file mapping for URL paths.
  • Directory listing toggles.
  • CGI execution based on file extensions.
  • File upload locations.

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MacOS-Specific Notes

• Use fcntl() for non-blocking file descriptors.
• Permitted flags: F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK, FD_CLOEXEC.

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Bonus Part

Bonus features include:

• Support for cookies and session management.
• Handling multiple CGI programs.

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Notes

• Testing:

  • Compare server behavior with NGINX.
  • Use tools like Telnet and Python scripts to simulate client requests.
  • Verify against the HTTP/1.1 specification for compliance.
  • ...

• Documentation:

  • Provide configuration files and example content to demonstrate server functionality.