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🌐 std web_server

2024-12-10 · rust · sync · project

Minimal yet functional multi-threaded web server implemented entirely using the Rust standard library. No external dependencies — just pure std.

📚 GitHub Repository

This project demonstrates how to build a basic but concurrent HTTP server by leveraging only the Rust Standard Library.
It serves as a deep dive into Rust’s core capabilities around file I/O, networking, threading, and concurrency.

An excellent hands-on learning example for:

• Systems programmers
• Backend developers exploring Rust
• Students building web server fundamentals

🛠 Tech Stack – std Only

The server is powered by a thread pool and handles each TCP connection asynchronously using:

• 📂 fs – for serving static HTML files
• 🔗 net::{TcpListener, TcpStream} – for socket connections
• 🧵 thread – to spawn workers
• 📦 sync::{mpsc, Arc, Mutex} – for shared message passing
• 🕒 time::Duration – for simulated delays (e.g., thread sleeping)
• 📖 io::{BufReader, prelude::*} – to read and parse incoming streams

✨ Features

1. Multi-threaded request handling

   • Built-in thread pool to handle requests concurrently.

2. Graceful connection handling

   • Supports reading HTTP headers via BufReader and routing based on request paths.

3. Static file serving

   • Can serve .html files directly from the filesystem.

4. Clean shutdown mechanism

   • Implements graceful shutdown via message passing.

5. Zero dependencies

   • Uses only what std offers — perfect for understanding how things work under the hood.

📂 Project Structure

• main.rs – entry point, sets up listener and thread pool
• lib.rs – contains thread pool implementation
• static/ – directory for HTML files (index.html, 404.html, etc.)

🧪 Example Usage

cargo run

Then open your browser and go to: http://localhost:7878

To simulate a delayed response:

• Access route /sleep — one thread will sleep for 5 seconds.

🧠 Educational Value

This project mirrors the concepts from “The Rust Programming Language” book (Chapter 20), but it goes further with:

• Better thread pool abstraction
• Error handling improvements
• Project-ready formatting

Use it to:

• Learn how a basic HTTP server works
• Build custom functionality (routes, MIME types, logging, etc.)
• Extend toward async runtime by comparing with tokio later

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — feel free to build on it, fork it, or turn it into something bigger.