HTTP Server

A single-threaded HTTP/1.1 server written from scratch in Rust. It serves static files from a configurable public directory and implements HTTP protocol parsing manually.

Features

• HTTP/1.1 request parsing (method, path, query string, headers, body)
• Request body parsed from Content-Length + Content-Type; represented as Text or Binary
• Static file serving (HTML, CSS, JSON, images, …) from a public/ directory
• Auto-detected Content-Type header based on file extension
• Content-Length header included in every response
• 405 Method Not Allowed for non-GET requests; 404 for missing files
• Custom 404.html page served when present in public/
• Directory traversal attack prevention
• Dynamic read buffer: headers up to 8 KB, body up to 1 MB
• 5-second read timeout per connection
• Configurable bind address and port via environment variables
• Centralised error handling via thiserror
• Query string parsing with multi-value support per key

Project Structure

src/
├── main.rs                  # Entry point, server startup
├── config.rs                # Config struct (env vars + .env file)
├── server.rs                # TCP server and Handler trait
├── website_handler.rs       # Static file handler
└── http/
    ├── mod.rs               # Module exports
    ├── error.rs             # ParseError (thiserror)
    ├── method.rs            # Method enum (GET, POST, PUT, …)
    ├── request.rs           # HTTP request parsing
    ├── request_body.rs      # RequestBody enum (Text / Binary)
    ├── response.rs          # HTTP response building
    ├── status_code.rs       # StatusCode enum with reason phrases
    ├── query_string.rs      # Query string parsing
    └── headers.rs           # HTTP headers parsing
public/
├── index.html
├── 404.html
├── style.css
└── informations.json

Requirements

Rust and Cargo installed. Installation guide: https://www.rust-lang.org/learn/get-started

Getting Started

git clone https://github.com/federicobaldini/http-server
cd http-server
cargo run

The server starts on 127.0.0.1:5000 by default.

Configuration

Environment Variable	Description	Default
PUBLIC_PATH	Absolute path to the static files directory	./public
HOST	IP address the server binds to	127.0.0.1
PORT	TCP port the server listens on	5000
MAX_HEADER_SIZE	Max request header bytes	8192
MAX_BODY_SIZE	Max request body bytes	1048576
READ_TIMEOUT_SECS	Idle connection timeout in seconds	5

All variables can also be set in a .env file at the project root (loaded automatically via dotenvy).

Example:

PUBLIC_PATH=/var/www/html HOST=0.0.0.0 PORT=8080 cargo run

Known Limitations

• Single-threaded: handles one connection at a time
• No keep-alive support (connection closes after each response)
• No HTTPS support