darkhttpd

When you need a web server in a hurry.

darkhttpd-1.12.tar.bz2 (20,184 bytes)
or: darkhttpd.c
or: git clone https://unix4lyfe.org/git/darkhttpd (http works too)
or: browse the darkhttpd gitweb.

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.
BSD license.
suckless.org says darkhttpd sucks less.

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.

History:

1.0 - First release.
1.1 - Optimized directory listing generation, report CPU usage on exit, Makefile for the terminally lazy.
1.2 - Code cleanup, report traffic stats on exit.
1.3 - Added --pidfile and --daemon, a number of portability fixes, use sendfile() on Solaris.
1.4 - Fixed a segfault in log_connection().
1.5 - Minor performance enhancements.
1.6 - Fixed use-after-free bug.
1.7 - In autogenerated directory listings, URL encode links that need it.
1.8 - Fixed large file support on 32-bit Linux, plus minor bug fixes.
1.9 - Added --no-keepalive, --forward, --no-server-id.
1.10 - Added --forward-all, strip query parameters from URL.
1.11 - Security: call setgroups() before setgid().
1.12 - Added --no-listing, --default-mimetype, improve URL escaping, set listing charset to UTF-8, added support for IPv6.

Screenshot:

$ make
cc -O2 -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe  `[ \`uname\` = "SunOS" ] && echo -lsocket -lnsl` darkhttpd.c -o darkhttpd
$ ./darkhttpd ~/public_html
darkhttpd/1.7, copyright (c) 2003-2008 Emil Mikulic.
listening on 0.0.0.0:80
^C
caught Interrupt: 2, stopping
$ _