Simple-Web-Server

A very simple, fast, multithreaded, platform independent HTTP and HTTPS server and client library implemented using C++11 and Asio (both Boost.Asio and standalone Asio can be used). Created to be an easy way to make REST resources available from C++ applications.

See https://gitlab.com/eidheim/Simple-WebSocket-Server for an easy way to make WebSocket/WebSocket Secure endpoints in C++. Also, feel free to check out the new C++ IDE supporting C++11/14/17: https://gitlab.com/cppit/jucipp.

Features

• Asynchronous request handling
• Thread pool if needed
• Platform independent
• HTTP/1.1 supported, including persistent connections
• HTTPS supported
• Chunked transfer encoding and server-sent events
• Can set timeouts for request/response and content
• Can set max request/response size
• Sending outgoing messages is thread safe
• Client creates necessary connections and perform reconnects when needed

See also benchmarks for a performance comparisons to a few other HTTP libraries.

Usage

See http_examples.cpp or https_examples.cpp for example usage. The following server resources are setup using regular expressions to match request paths:

• POST /string - responds with the posted string.
• POST /json - parses the request content as JSON, and responds with some of the parsed values.
• GET /info - responds with information extracted from the request.
• GET /match/([0-9]+) - matches for instance /match/123 and responds with the matched number 123.
• GET /work - starts a thread, simulating heavy work, and responds when the work is done.
• GET - a special default_resource handler is called when a request path does not match any of the above resources. This resource responds with the content of files in the web/-folder if the request path identifies one of these files.

Documentation is also available, generated from the master branch.

Dependencies

• Boost.Asio or standalone Asio
• Boost is required to compile the examples
• For HTTPS: OpenSSL libraries

Installation instructions for the dependencies needed to compile the examples on a selection of platforms can be seen below. Default build with Boost.Asio is assumed. Turn on CMake option USE_STANDALONE_ASIO to instead use standalone Asio.

Debian based distributions

sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-thread-dev

Arch Linux based distributions

sudo pacman -S boost

MacOS

brew install openssl boost

Compile and run

Compile with a C++11 compliant compiler:

cmake -H. -Bbuild
cmake --build build

HTTP

Run the server and client examples: ./build/http_examples

Direct your favorite browser to for instance http://localhost:8080/

HTTPS

Before running the server, an RSA private key (server.key) and an SSL certificate (server.crt) must be created.

Run the server and client examples: ./build/https_examples

Direct your favorite browser to for instance https://localhost:8080/

Contributing

Contributions are welcome, either by creating an issue or a merge request. However, before you create a new issue or merge request, please search for previous similar issues or requests. A response will normally be given within a few days.