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darkhttpd-rs

Rust port of darkhttpd, a simple and fast web server for static content.

Like the original, darkhttpd-rs constrains itself to a single source file and minimal dependencies. Porting was done incrementally, by replacing individual C functions, until the entire program was translated.

darkhttpd-rs is experimental. You probably want to use darkhttpd instead.

Changes from darkhttpd

  • sendfile support required.
  • FreeBSD acceptfilter support (--accf) removed.
  • Only tested on Linux.

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.
  • 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.
  • Can serve 301 redirects based on Host header.
  • Uses sendfile().
  • ISC license.

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

Install the Rust toolchain.

Build ./target/release/darkhttpd-rs with cargo:

cargo build --release

How to run

Serve /var/www/htdocs on the default port (80 if running as root, else 8080):

darkhttpd-rs /var/www/htdocs

Serve ~/public_html on port 8081:

darkhttpd-rs ~/public_html --port 8081

Only bind to one IP address (useful on multi-homed systems):

darkhttpd-rs ~/public_html --addr 192.168.0.1

Serve at most 4 simultaneous connections:

darkhttpd-rs ~/public_html --maxconn 4

Log accesses to a file:

darkhttpd-rs ~/public_html --log access.log

Chroot for extra security (you need root privs for chroot):

darkhttpd-rs /var/www/htdocs --chroot

Use default.htm instead of index.html:

darkhttpd-rs /var/www/htdocs --index default.htm

Add mimetypes - in this case, serve .dat files as text/plain:

$ cat extramime
text/plain  dat
$ darkhttpd-rs /var/www/htdocs --mimetypes extramime

Drop privileges:

darkhttpd-rs /var/www/htdocs --uid www --gid www

Run in the background and create a pidfile:

darkhttpd-rs /var/www/htdocs --pidfile /var/run/httpd.pid --daemon

Web forward (301) requests for some hosts:

darkhttpd-rs /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-rs /var/www/htdocs \
  --forward example.com http://www.example.com \
  --forward-all http://catchall.example.com

Command line options can be combined:

darkhttpd-rs ~/public_html --port 8080 --addr 127.0.0.1

To see a full list of command line options, run darkhttpd-rs without any arguments:

darkhttpd-rs