Simple guide to writing a server in C
In this document I aim to give a brief overview of how to write a
new server, based on the generic code supplied as part of WWW.
When you extract the TAR files, you will get three directories created,
called common, linemode, and daemon. The common directory contains
files some of which will be used by the daemon. However, the main
daemon code lies in the implementation directory under the daemon
directory. Here there are three files of note: HTDaemon.c, HTRetrieve.c,
and HTRules.c.
HTDaemon.c contains the code to handle the communication connection.
It should not prove necessary to edit this file. As part of the code,
this module calls a function called HTRetrieve. In the standard implementation,
the code for this function is placed in HTRetrieve.c
The HTRetrieve function
This function is called by the main function after it has received
a message from a client and partially parsed this message. The three
arguments the function receives are:
1) the document reference which the client sent (from the hypertext
reference),
2) a plus-separated list of keywords, which is empty except were an
index search is required,
3) the socket to which the reply should be sent.
The standard function
The general algorithm for the HTRetrieve function looks like this:
<![CDATA[int HTRetrieve (char * arg, char * keywords, int socket)
{
if any keywords
write an error message to socket (since this server does not do index searches)
return
else
if compiled with the option supplied
attempt to transform the UDI in arg by the rules supplied in the rules file
endif
attempt to open and read the file addressed by arg
if able to open the file
check the file format
if it is in plain text
send the ]]>
<![CDATA[ tag to the socket
else
if it isn't HTML
send an error message back that the server can't handle multiple format
return
endif
endif
read file and write it to the socket
else
send error message
endif
endif
}
</plaintext></pre>
Writing a new server involves either modifying this function in the
file HTRetrieve.c, or writing a totally new function in a new file
(in which case the make file must be altered to use this one instead.
The two most likely changes are either to change the document address
format from the standard (UNIX-style) UDI to the local format, or
to implement an index server. The former is simply a matter of implementing
a function which, given the UDI, will output the address in the local
format. The latter is slightly more complicated, and is described
below.
<h3>Writing an index server</h3>
An index server works by taking a plus-separated list of keywords
and using it as the basis for querying a database. In most cases
it is simple to write a new HTRetrieve function from scratch, of the
form:
<xmp>int HTRetrieve (char * arg, char * keywords, int socket)
{
if (arg != SERVER_NAME)
write error message to socket
return
else
if no keywords
write back a message explaining what the server is, in HTML, which must
include the tag , to inform the browser that this is an index
else
create a query in the langauge of the database, based on the keyword list
send this query to the database
read the response and convert it to HTML, again including the
tag
write the HTML to the socket
endif
endif
}
</xmp>
<pre><isindex><isindex></pre>
where SERVER_NAME is the name you are giving to your server, e.g.
"ALWHO". Where the response to the query must contain anchors, the
HREF entry need only contain the SERVER_NAME and the keywords, not
the server internet name and port, e.g. the reference need only be:
<xmp>HREF=/ALWHO?barker
</xmp>
<pre></pre>
not
<xmp>HREF=http://www1.cern.ch:3245/ALWHO?barker
</xmp>
<pre></pre>
It is up to the browser to fill in the missing part.
<h3>Making the server</h3>
How to create the server executable depends upon the system you are
using. For most UNIX platforms it is enough to run the 'make' command
in the directory where the daemon sources exist. This will create
an executable called 'httpd'.
<p>
On the VMS systems, you must type 'mms/macro=(multinet=1)'.
</p>
<h3>Running the server</h3>
To start up the server you must type 'httpd ' possibly followed by
one or more command line options. The most important of these is
the -a option. This tells the server which port to listen to. For
example
<p>
httpd -a \*:5000 </p>
<p>
tells the server to listen to any connection (that's the '*') on port
5000. Note that the backslash is only necessary on UNIX to prevent
the * being completed. This command could potentially fail if another
process is already using that port. The standard port for WWW servers
is port 80, although by default if no -a option is present, the daemon
will listen to standard input and write to standard output (the reason
for this is given below).</p>
<p>
On UNIX systems, the daemon may be run by the inet 'super server'
daemon. If this is done, no -a option need by given, since the inet
daemon supplied all the data from the port to the WWW server through
the standard input and output chanels.
</p>
<h3>Running multiple servers</h3>
If you have a number of different servers on one machine, each providing
a different service, e.g. WHO, XFIND, etc, you may wish either to
intergrate them all into a single package, or to run each as an independent
service.
<p>
In the first case you would write the HTRetrieve function with a CASE
statement which would decide which database to query depending upon
the address supplied in the first argument (arg). </p>
<p>
In the second case, each server would have to be run from a different
port. Each server is compiled separately, using it's own version
of the HTRetrieve function, and then launched with a different port
number assigned to it. </p>
<p>
______________________________________________________<a name="0" href="/archive/cern/24" original-href="http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/People.html#11" archive-page-id="24"> CTB</a></p>
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JanetAndJohn -- /Daemon
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2024-11-08T23:52:38Z
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