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<link title="Get" rel="Chapter" href="Get.html"><title>Ocamlnet 4 Reference Manual : Nethttpd_intro</title>
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<h1>Nethttpd_intro</h1>
<div class="info-desc">
<h3 id="overview">Overview over the HTTP daemon</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The daemon has five modules:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="Nethttpd_types.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_types</code></a> is just a module with common type definitions used
by the other modules</li>
<li><a href="Nethttpd_kernel.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_kernel</code></a> is the implementation of the HTTP protocol. If we
talk about the "kernel" we mean this module. The kernel has two
interface sides: There is the "socket side" and the "message side"
that are connected by bidirectional data flow.
The task of the kernel is to decode input received by the socket side
and to deliver it to a consumer on the message side, and conversely
to encode input coming in through the message side and to send it
to the socket. The kernel is a quite low-level module; the socket
is accessed in a multiplexing-compatible style, and the messages
are sequences of tokens like "status line", "header", "body chunk"
and so on. Normally a user of the daemon does not program the kernel
directly. It is, however, possible to pass certain configuration
options to the kernel even if an encapsulation is used.</li>
<li><a href="Nethttpd_reactor.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_reactor</code></a> is an encapsulation of the kernel with a nicer
interface. An instance of the reactor processes, like the kernel,
only a single HTTP connection. It is used as follows: The user
of the reactor pulls the arriving HTTP requests from the reactor,
processes them, and writes the responses back to the reactor. This
means that the requests are processed in a strictly sequential
way. The reactor hides the details of the HTTP protocol. The
reactor is able to perform socket input and output at the same time,
i.e. when the response is sent to the client the next request(s) can
already be read (pipelining). The reactor can be configured such that
buffering of requests and responses is avoided, even if large
messages are transferred. As mentioned, the reactor can only
deal with one connection at the same time. In order to serve
several connections, one must use multi-threading.</li>
<li><a href="Nethttpd_engine.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_engine</code></a> is another encapsulation of the kernel. It is
event-based, and this makes it possible that several instances
can work at the same time without using multi-threading. The user
of the engine is called back when the beginning of the next HTTP
request arrives and at certain other events. The user processes
the event, and generates the response.
The engine is a
highly efficient implementation of an HTTP server, but there are
also drawbacks, so user may feel more comfortable with the reactor.
Especially, the engine needs large buffers for input and output
(there is an idea to use helper threads to avoid these buffers,
but this has not been implemented yet). Of course, the engine
also supports pipelining.</li>
<li><a href="Nethttpd_services.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_services</code></a> has functions to compose complex service
functions from simpler ones. In particular, one can configure
name- or IP-based virtual hosting, one can bind services to
URLs, and one can define static file serving, directory listings,
and dynamic services. It is quite easy to turn a Netcgi program
into a dynamic service for Nethttpd.</li>
<li><a href="Nethttpd_plex.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_plex</code></a> provides nice integration into <code class="code">netplex</code>.
Most features provided by <a href="Nethttpd_services.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_services</code></a> can be activated
by simply referencing them in the netplex configuration file.</li>
</ul>
<p>It is also important to mention what Nethttpd does not include:</p>
<ul>
<li>There is no function to create the socket, and to accept connections.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>There is no function to manage threads or subprocesses</li>
</ul>
<p>Ocamlnet provides this in the <code class="code">netplex</code> library.</p>
<h3 id="2_Suggestedstrategy">Suggested strategy</h3>
<p>First, look at <a href="Nethttpd_services.html"><code class="code">Nethttpd_services</code></a>. 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:</p>
<pre class="codepre"><code class="code">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
})
]
]
</code></pre>
<p>The <code class="code">/files</code> path is bound to a static service, i.e. the files found in
the directory <code class="code">/data/docroot</code> can be accessed over the web. The record
<code class="code">fs_spec</code> configures the static service.</p>
<p>The <code class="code">/service</code> path is bound to a dynamic service, i.e. the requests
are processed by the user-defined function <code class="code">process_request</code>. This function
is very similar to the request processors used in Netcgi.</p>
<p>The symbolic <code class="code">*</code> path is only bound for the <code class="code">OPTIONS</code> method. This is
recommended, because clients can use this method to find out the
capabilities of the server.</p>
<p>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).</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Now, just call <a href="Nethttpd_reactor.html#VALprocess_connection"><code class="code">Nethttpd_reactor.process_connection</code></a> or
<a href="Nethttpd_engine.html#VALprocess_connection"><code class="code">Nethttpd_engine.process_connection</code></a>, and pass the socket descriptor
as argument. These functions do all the rest.</p>
<p>The Ocamlnet source tarball includes examples for several approaches.
Especially look at <code class="code">file_reactor.ml</code>, <code class="code">file_mt_reactor.ml</code>, and
<code class="code">file_engine.ml</code>.</p>
<h3 id="2_Configuration">Configuration</h3>
<p>One of the remaining questions is: How to set all these configuration
options.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<pre class="codepre"><code class="code"> 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
</code></pre>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3 id="2_Linking">Linking</h3>
<p>In Ocamlnet 3 the nethttpd library can be both referenced as
<code class="code">-package nethttpd</code> or <code class="code">-package nethttpd-for-netcgi2</code> (the
latter being an alias). As the <code class="code">netcgi1</code> library was dropped, there
is no reason for <code class="code">nethttpd-for-netcgi1</code> anymore - this name is
now unavailable.</p>
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