webserv

"webserv" Project – École 42 Paris

Overview

webserv is a high-performance HTTP web server implemented in C++ as part of the 42 Paris curriculum. This project covers end-to-end server development: from parsing configuration files and HTTP requests to managing connections, serving static content, and executing CGI scripts.

Key Features

• Configuration Parsing: Reads and validates custom server configuration files (miniconfig.txt).
• HTTP/1.1 Support: Handles GET, POST, DELETE methods, persistent connections, chunked transfer encoding.
• Static File Serving: Serves HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images from designated static_pages directories.
• CGI Execution: Executes CGI scripts placed in cgi-bin, allowing dynamic content generation.
• Error Handling: Custom error pages served from static_pages/error_pages for standard HTTP error codes.
• Concurrency: Manages multiple client connections using multi-threading and non-blocking sockets.
• Logging: Detailed request and error logs via a flexible logging module.

Installation & Usage

git clone https://github.com/maecarva/webserv.git
cd webserv
make

# Run the server with the provided config
./webserv miniconfig.txt

• Access the site at: http://localhost:PORT/site (as defined in miniconfig.txt)
• Place custom CGI scripts in cgi-bin/ to enable dynamic responses.

To stop the server, press Ctrl+C.

Skills Gained

• Designed a custom config parser to load and validate server settings.
• Implemented HTTP/1.1 protocol handling: header parsing, methods, status codes.
• Utilized socket programming (BSD sockets) and multi-threading for scalable request processing.
• Developed CGI support to bridge server and external executables.
• Managed static and dynamic content delivery with robust error handling.
• Built a modular logging system for monitoring and debugging.

Project Structure

webserv/
├── cgi-bin/            	# Executable scripts for CGI handling
├── inc/                	# Header files for all modules
├── Makefile            	# Build rules for compilation and clean-up
├── miniconfig.txt      	# Sample configuration file (server blocks, routes)
├── src/                	# Source code directory
│   ├── Config/         	# Configuration parser and validation
│   ├── Logger/         	# Logging utilities (access, error logs)
│   ├── Request/        	# HTTP request parsing modules
│   │   └── Response/   	# HTTP response construction modules
│   ├── Server/         	# Core server logic, connection handling, threading
│   └── Utils/          	# Helper functions (string ops, error handlers)
└── static_pages/       	# Static content and error pages
    ├── error_pages/    	# Custom HTML pages for HTTP error codes
    └── site/           	# HTML/CSS/JS assets for the hosted website