Minimal HTTP Server in C

This is a small learning HTTP server written in C. It uses Unix sockets to listen on 127.0.0.1:8080, parse simple HTTP request lines, serve static files from a fixed directory, build HTTP responses, log requests, and clean up resources.

It is not intended to be a production web server.

Features

• IPv4 TCP server on 127.0.0.1:8080
• Single-threaded blocking accept loop
• Supports GET
• Serves files from files/
• Returns basic 200, 400, 404, 405, and 500 responses
• Sends Content-Length, Content-Type, and Connection: close
• Logs method, path, status code, and response time

Build

make

This creates:

server.out

Run

./server.out

The server listens on:

http://127.0.0.1:8080

Try It

Root request:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/

Static file:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/test.html

Missing file:

curl -v http://127.0.0.1:8080/missing.html

Unsupported method:

curl -v -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8080/test.html

Project Layout

Makefile
server.c        socket setup, accept loop, request handling, file serving
http.c          HTTP request parsing and response building
http.h          public HTTP structs and function declarations
files/          static files served by the server
plan.md         learning milestone plan

Limitations

This server is intentionally minimal. It does not implement full HTTP behavior. Known limitations include:

• one request per connection
• no concurrency
• request reading assumes the request fits in one buffer
• basic path traversal protection only
• basic content type handling
• no URL decoding
• limited client disconnect handling

The goal is to understand the path from sockets to HTTP parsing, file I/O, response writing, logging, and cleanup.