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https://github.com/emikulic/darkhttpd
When you need a web server in a hurry.
https://github.com/emikulic/darkhttpd
Last synced: 22 days ago
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When you need a web server in a hurry.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/emikulic/darkhttpd
- Owner: emikulic
- License: isc
- Created: 2021-01-17T13:39:15.000Z (almost 4 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2024-06-01T02:17:34.000Z (5 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2024-10-02T00:42:04.845Z (about 1 month ago)
- Language: C
- Homepage: https://unix4lyfe.org/darkhttpd/
- Size: 727 KB
- Stars: 1,034
- Watchers: 14
- Forks: 83
- Open Issues: 9
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: COPYING
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# darkhttpd
https://unix4lyfe.org/darkhttpd/
When you need a web server in a hurry.
Features:
* Simple to set up:
* Single binary, no other files, no installation needed.
* Standalone, doesn't need `inetd` or `ucspi-tcp`.
* No messing around with config files - all you have to specify is the `www` root.
* Written in C - efficient and portable.
* Small memory footprint.
* Event loop, single threaded - no fork() or pthreads.
* Generates directory listings.
* Supports HTTP GET and HEAD requests.
* Supports Range / partial content. (try streaming music files or resuming a download)
* Supports If-Modified-Since.
* Supports Keep-Alive connections.
* Supports IPv6.
* Support arbitrary custom response headers.
* Can serve 301 redirects based on Host header.
* Uses sendfile() on FreeBSD, Solaris and Linux.
* Can use acceptfilter on FreeBSD.
* Can use chroot as non-root on FreeBSD 14+.
* At some point worked on FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris.
* ISC license.
* suckless.org says [darkhttpd sucks less](http://suckless.org/rocks/).
* Small Docker image (<100KB)
Security:
* Can log accesses, including Referer and User-Agent.
* Can chroot.
* Can drop privileges.
* Impervious to `/../` sniffing.
* Times out idle connections.
* Drops overly long requests.
Limitations:
* Only serves static content - no CGI.
## How to build darkhttpd
Simply run make:
```
make
```
If `cc` is not on your `PATH` as an alias to your C compiler, you may need to specify it. For example,
```
CC=gcc make
```
## How to run darkhttpd
Serve /var/www/htdocs on the default port (80 if running as root, else 8080):
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs
```
Serve `~/public_html` on port 8081:
```
./darkhttpd ~/public_html --port 8081
```
Only bind to one IP address (useful on multi-homed systems):
```
./darkhttpd ~/public_html --addr 192.168.0.1
```
Serve at most 4 simultaneous connections:
```
./darkhttpd ~/public_html --maxconn 4
```
Log accesses to a file:
```
./darkhttpd ~/public_html --log access.log
```
Chroot for extra security (you need root privs for chroot):
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --chroot
```
Use default.htm instead of index.html:
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --index default.htm
```
Add mimetypes - in this case, serve .dat files as text/plain:
```
$ cat extramime
text/plain dat
$ ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --mimetypes extramime
```
Drop privileges:
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --uid www --gid www
```
Use acceptfilter (FreeBSD only):
```
kldload accf_http
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --accf
```
Run in the background and create a pidfile:
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --pidfile /var/run/httpd.pid --daemon
```
Serve only one file instead of a whole directory:
```
./darkhttpd ~/public_html/index.html --single-file
```
Web forward (301) requests for some hosts:
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --forward example.com http://www.example.com \
--forward secure.example.com https://www.example.com/secure
```
Web forward (301) requests for all hosts:
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --forward example.com http://www.example.com \
--forward-all http://catchall.example.com
```
Arbitrary custom response headers (in this case, allow all cross-origin
requests):
```
./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *'
```
Commandline options can be combined:
```
./darkhttpd ~/public_html --port 8080 --addr 127.0.0.1
```
To see a full list of commandline options,
run darkhttpd without any arguments:
```
./darkhttpd
```
## How to run darkhttpd in Docker
First, build the image.
```
docker build -t darkhttpd .
```
Then run using volumes for the served files and port mapping for access.
For example, the following would serve files from the current user's dev/mywebsite directory on http://localhost:8080/
```
docker run -p 8080:80 -v ~/dev/mywebsite:/var/www/htdocs:ro darkhttpd
```
Enjoy.
## How to test darkhttpd
```
make test
```
If that isn't working for you, and you're on FreeBSD, you may need to run something closer to the following:
```
ASAN_OPTIONS=" " PYTHON=python3.11 make test
```