# darkhttpd https://unix4lyfe.org/darkhttpd/ When you need a web server in a hurry. Features: * Simple to set up: * Single binary, no other files, no installation needed. * Standalone, doesn't need `inetd` or `ucspi-tcp`. * No messing around with config files - all you have to specify is the `www` root. * Written in C - efficient and portable. * Small memory footprint. * Event loop, single threaded - no fork() or pthreads. * Generates directory listings. * Supports HTTP GET and HEAD requests. * Supports Range / partial content. (try streaming music files or resuming a download) * Supports If-Modified-Since. * Supports Keep-Alive connections. * Supports IPv6. * Can serve 301 redirects based on Host header. * Uses sendfile() on FreeBSD, Solaris and Linux. * Can use acceptfilter on FreeBSD. * At some point worked on FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris. * ISC license. * suckless.org says [darkhttpd sucks less](http://suckless.org/rocks/). * Small Docker image (<100KB) Security: * Can log accesses, including Referer and User-Agent. * Can chroot. * Can drop privileges. * Impervious to `/../` sniffing. * Times out idle connections. * Drops overly long requests. Limitations: * Only serves static content - no CGI. ## How to build darkhttpd Simply run make: ``` make ``` If `cc` is not on your `PATH` as an alias to your C compiler, you may need to specify it. For example, ``` CC=gcc make ``` ## How to run darkhttpd Serve /var/www/htdocs on the default port (80 if running as root, else 8080): ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs ``` Serve `~/public_html` on port 8081: ``` ./darkhttpd ~/public_html --port 8081 ``` Only bind to one IP address (useful on multi-homed systems): ``` ./darkhttpd ~/public_html --addr 192.168.0.1 ``` Serve at most 4 simultaneous connections: ``` ./darkhttpd ~/public_html --maxconn 4 ``` Log accesses to a file: ``` ./darkhttpd ~/public_html --log access.log ``` Chroot for extra security (you need root privs for chroot): ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --chroot ``` Use default.htm instead of index.html: ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --index default.htm ``` Add mimetypes - in this case, serve .dat files as text/plain: ``` $ cat extramime text/plain dat $ ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --mimetypes extramime ``` Drop privileges: ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --uid www --gid www ``` Use acceptfilter (FreeBSD only): ``` kldload accf_http ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --accf ``` Run in the background and create a pidfile: ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --pidfile /var/run/httpd.pid --daemon ``` Web forward (301) requests for some hosts: ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --forward example.com http://www.example.com \ --forward secure.example.com https://www.example.com/secure ``` Web forward (301) requests for all hosts: ``` ./darkhttpd /var/www/htdocs --forward example.com http://www.example.com \ --forward-all http://catchall.example.com ``` Commandline options can be combined: ``` ./darkhttpd ~/public_html --port 8080 --addr 127.0.0.1 ``` To see a full list of commandline options, run darkhttpd without any arguments: ``` ./darkhttpd ``` ## How to run darkhttpd in Docker First, build the image. ``` docker build -t darkhttpd . ``` Then run using volumes for the served files and port mapping for access. For example, the following would serve files from the current user's dev/mywebsite directory on http://localhost:8080/ ``` docker run -p 8080:80 -v ~/dev/mywebsite:/var/www/htdocs:ro darkhttpd ``` Enjoy.