C++ HTTP Server

This project is a complete lightweight HTTP server built from scratch in C++. It supports basic HTTP methods and extends into advanced web features through modular and well-structured code. This server was developed as a comprehensive hands-on learning project and is suitable for showcasing on resumes and GitHub.

🔧 Features Implemented

• ✅ Non-blocking socket server using select() for I/O multiplexing
• ✅ Custom HTTP request parsing (supports GET, POST, DELETE)
• ✅ Static file serving from the /public directory
• ✅ Cookie-based login and logout functionality with expiration tracking
• ✅ File upload using multipart/form-data via POST requests
• ✅ Download most recently uploaded file (/download endpoint)
• ✅ CGI script execution for dynamic content (GET/POST)
• ✅ Cookie store with in-memory session expiration
• ✅ Thread Pool for concurrent client request processing
• ✅ Auto-cleanup of old uploaded files after a timeout

📁 Project Structure

.
├── include/
│   ├── http_request.h
│   ├── utils.h
│   ├── ThreadPool.h
├── src/
│   ├── main.cpp
│   ├── http_request.cpp
│   ├── utils.cpp
│   ├── ThreadPool.tpp
├── public/
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── upload.html
│   ├── uploaded_file.txt/pdf  <-- dynamically created
├── cgi-bin/
│   ├── env.py
│   ├── post_echo.py
├── Makefile
└── README.md

🚀 How to Run

make clean
make
./server

🔍 Testing All Functionality

1. Static File Serving

curl http://localhost:8080/
curl http://localhost:8080/upload.html

2. Echo POST Request

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/echo -d "name=John&age=30"

3. File Upload (multipart/form-data)

echo "This is a test file." > test_upload.txt
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/upload -F "file=@test_upload.txt"

4. Download Most Recently Uploaded File

curl -O http://localhost:8080/download

5. Set Cookie and Retrieve It

curl -i "http://localhost:8080/set-cookie?name=John"
curl -b "username=John" http://localhost:8080/get-cookie

6. Login and Access Protected Profile

curl -c cookies.txt "http://localhost:8080/login?user=Sam"
curl -b cookies.txt http://localhost:8080/profile

7. Logout and Revisit Profile

curl -b cookies.txt -c cookies.txt http://localhost:8080/logout
curl -b cookies.txt http://localhost:8080/profile

8. CGI Execution (GET and POST)

curl "http://localhost:8080/cgi-bin/env.py?foo=bar&user=test"
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/cgi-bin/post_echo.py -d "x=5&y=10"

9. DELETE File

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/uploaded_file.txt

10. Thread Pool Stress Test

seq 10 | xargs -n1 -P10 curl -s http://localhost:8080/upload.html > /dev/null

✅ Future Improvements

• Add persistent file tracking instead of single uploaded_file.txt
• Add full multipart/form-data parser for filenames and types
• Implement async I/O using epoll or Boost ASIO (Linux)
• Add HTTPS support

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© Developed as a full-stack systems project in C++