Nethttpd_intro

Overview over the HTTP daemon

This library implements an HTTP 1.1 server. Because it is a library and not a stand-alone server like Apache, it can be used in very flexible ways. The disadvantage is that the user of the library must do more to get a running program than just configuring the daemon.

The daemon has five modules:

It is also important to mention what Nethttpd does not include:

Ocamlnet provides this in the netplex library.

Suggested strategy

First, look at Nethttpd_services. This module allows the user to define the services of the web server. For example, the following code defines a single host with an URL space:

let fs_spec =
  { file_docroot = "/data/docroot";
    file_uri = "/";
    file_suffix_types = [ "txt", "text/plain";
                          "html", "text/html" ];
    file_default_type = "application/octet-stream";
    file_options = [ `Enable_gzip;
                     `Enable_listings simple_listing
                   ]
  }

let srv =
  host_distributor
    [ default_host ~pref_name:"localhost" ~pref_port:8765 (),
      uri_distributor
        [ "*", (options_service());
          "/files", (file_service fs_spec);
          "/service", (dynamic_service
                           { dyn_handler = process_request;
                             dyn_activation = std_activation `Std_activation_buffered;
                             dyn_uri = Some "/service";
                             dyn_translator = file_translator fs_spec;
                             dyn_accept_all_conditionals = false
                           })
        ]
    ]

The /files path is bound to a static service, i.e. the files found in the directory /data/docroot can be accessed over the web. The record fs_spec configures the static service.

The /service path is bound to a dynamic service, i.e. the requests are processed by the user-defined function process_request. This function is very similar to the request processors used in Netcgi.

The symbolic * path is only bound for the OPTIONS method. This is recommended, because clients can use this method to find out the capabilities of the server.

Second, select an encapsulation. As mentioned, the reactor is much simpler to use, but you must take a multi-threaded approach to serve multiple connections simultaneously. The engine is more efficient, but may use more memory (unless it is only used for static pages).

Third, write the code to create the socket and to accept connections. For the reactor, you should do this in a multi-threaded way (but multi-processing is also possible). For the engine, you should do this in an event-based way.

Now, just call Nethttpd_reactor.process_connection or Nethttpd_engine.process_connection, and pass the socket descriptor as argument. These functions do all the rest.

The Ocamlnet source tarball includes examples for several approaches. Especially look at file_reactor.ml, file_mt_reactor.ml, and file_engine.ml.

Configuration

One of the remaining questions is: How to set all these configuration options.

The user configures the daemon by passing a configuration object. This object has a number of methods that usually return constants, but there are also a few functions, e.g.

  let config : http_reactor_config =
    object
      method config_timeout_next_request = 15.0
      method config_timeout = 300.0
      method config_reactor_synch = `Write
      method config_cgi = Netcgi_env.default_config
      method config_error_response n = "<html>Error " ^ string_of_int n ^ "</html>"
      method config_log_error _ _ _ _ msg =
        printf "Error log: %s\n" msg
      method config_max_reqline_length = 256
      method config_max_header_length = 32768
      method config_max_trailer_length = 32768
      method config_limit_pipeline_length = 5
      method config_limit_pipeline_size = 250000
    end 

Some of the options are interpreted by the encapsulation, and some by the kernel. The object approach has been taken, because it can be arranged that the layers of the daemon correspond to a hierarchy of class types.

The options are documented in the modules where the class types are defined. Some of them are difficult to understand. In doubt, it is recommended to just copy the values found in the examples, because these are quite reasonable for typical usage scenarios.

Linking

In Ocamlnet 3 the nethttpd library can be both referenced as -package nethttpd or -package nethttpd-for-netcgi2 (the latter being an alias). As the netcgi1 library was dropped, there is no reason for nethttpd-for-netcgi1 anymore - this name is now unavailable.