42-webserv

This is a web server that behaves similar to NGINX, a popular open-source web server. The goal of this project was to get a thorough understanding of the HTTP protocol and to get familiar with the workings of webservers.

Features

• Supports HTTP/1.1
• Serve static files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, etc.)
• Supports multiple virtual servers to reverse proxy requests to other servers
• Supports python CGI scripts

Installation

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/[USERNAME]/nginx-like-web-server.git

Compile the webserver through the makefile:

make

Run executable (optionally with path to a configuration file):

./webserver [OPTIONAL: path-to-configfile] 

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)