HTTP server from scratch

A simple static file web server built from scratch in C++ using low-level socket programming.
This project demonstrates how web servers work under the hood by manually handling TCP connections and parsing HTTP requests.

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🌐 Features

• ✅ Serves static files from the public/ directory
• ✅ Parses raw HTTP GET requests
• ✅ Dynamically detects and serves correct MIME types
• ✅ Custom 404 page support (public/404.html)
• ✅ Handles multiple clients using fork()
• ✅ Written with only standard C/C++ libraries (no external dependencies)

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📁 File Structure

http-server-from-scratch/
├── server.cpp # Core server logic
├── public/ # Static files served by the server
│ ├── index.html
│ ├── style.css
│ └── 404.html
├── Makefile # Build instructions
└── README.md # This file

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⚙️ Build Instructions

✅ Requirements

• Linux (e.g., Ubuntu)
• g++ compiler

🛠️ Build & Run

make
./server

Then open your browser or run:

curl http://localhost:8080/

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How It Works:

• Server binds to port 8080
• Listens for TCP connections
• Forks a child process to handle each incoming client
• Reads the HTTP request line
• Extracts the file path and serves it if available
• Sets appropriate Content-Type based on file extension
• Returns a 404 page if the file isn’t found

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Future Enhancements

• Support HTTP POST and other methods
• Add threading instead of fork() for concurrency
• Log requests and status codes
• Add command-line options for port or root directory
• HTTP/1.1 features (Keep-Alive, headers)

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Built as a learning project to understand low-level networking and HTTP. Feel free to fork, modify, or suggest improvements!