webserv

A custom HTTP/1.1 web server written in C++11, inspired by nginx. Built around a non-blocking, event-driven architecture using BSD kqueue.

Features

• HTTP/1.1 compliant request parsing and response generation
• Non-blocking I/O with kqueue event loop
• Virtual host support (multiple server blocks on the same port)
• Location-based routing with URI rewriting
• Static file serving with auto-generated directory listings
• CGI/1.1 support (GET and POST)
• File uploads via POST
• Chunked transfer encoding
• Configurable error pages, timeouts, and max body size
• Supported methods: GET, POST, DELETE

Requirements

• macOS (uses BSD kqueue)
• C++11 compatible compiler (clang++ / g++)

Build

make        # build
make run    # build and run with default config
make re     # clean rebuild
make fclean # remove binary, objects, and logs

The output binary is ./webserv.

Usage

./webserv [config_file]

If no config file is provided, conf/default.conf is used.

Configuration

Configuration syntax is similar to nginx. Multiple server blocks are supported.

server {
    listen          8080
    server_name     example.com

    client_max_body 30M
    file50x         /html/50x.html
    file40x         /html/40x.html

    location / {
        root            /html
        allowed_method  GET POST DELETE
        index           index.html
        index_auto      off
    }

    location /cgi-bin {
        root            /cgi-bin
        allowed_method  GET POST
        cgi             on
    }

    location /upload {
        root            /html/upload
        allowed_method  POST
        upload          /html/upload
    }

    location /old {
        rewrite         /new
    }
}

Directives

Directive	Scope	Description
listen	server	Port to listen on
server_name	server	Hostname(s) for virtual hosting
client_max_body	server	Max request body size (e.g. 10M, 512K)
file50x	server	Path to custom 5xx error page
file40x	server	Path to custom 4xx error page
root	location	Directory to serve files from
allowed_method	location	Space-separated list: GET, POST, DELETE
index	location	Default file for directory requests
index_auto	location	Auto-generate directory listing (on/off)
cgi	location	Enable CGI execution (on/off)
upload	location	Directory to store uploaded files
rewrite	location	Redirect requests to another URI

Project Structure

webserv/
├── conf/           # Configuration files
├── src/
│   ├── main.cpp
│   ├── common/     # Sockets, kqueue wrapper, config parser, utilities
│   ├── core/       # Webserv orchestrator, Server, Client
│   └── http/       # Request, Response, Transaction, CGI module
└── Makefile

Architecture

The server runs a single-threaded event loop backed by kqueue:

1. Webserv — initializes the event loop, loads config, and manages Server and Client instances
2. Server — listens on a port and accepts new connections
3. Client — owns a connection; buffers I/O and tracks an active Transaction
4. Transaction — parses the Request, runs it through the matching location rules, and builds the Response
5. CGI — forks a child process, sets up the CGI environment, and pipes the request body in / response body out