How a Web server actually works ~ with C source code

Do you wonder how to write a program that accepts incoming messages with a network socket? Have you ever just wanted your own Web server to experiment and learn with?

Have you ever wondered how a Web server actually works? Experiment with nweb -- a simple Web server with only 200 lines of C source code. In this article, Nigel Griffiths provides a copy of this Web server and includes the source code as well. You can see exactly what it can and can't do.

Well, look no further -- nweb is what you need. This is a simple Web server that has only 200 lines of C source code. It runs as a regular user and can't run any server-side scripts or programs, so it can't open up any special privileges or security holes.

This article covers:

• What the nweb server program offers
• Summary of C functions features in the program
• Pseudo code to aid understanding of the flow of the code
• Network socket system calls used and other system calls
• How the client side operates
• C source code

nweb only transmits the following types of files to the browser :

• Static Web pages with extensions .html or .htm
• Graphical images such as .gif, .png, .jgp, or .jpeg
• Compressed binary files and archives such as .zip, .gz, and .tar
• If your favorite static file type is not in this list, you can simply add it in the source code and recompile to allow it.

Read more at IBM developerworks...

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