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

📚 GitHub Repository Rust Version

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.