Carbon HTTP Server

A high-performance HTTP/HTTPS server written in C for Linux systems, featuring advanced security, caching, and async I/O.

Core Features

✅ Multi-threaded HTTP/HTTPS server with epoll-based async I/O
✅ SSL/TLS support with automatic HTTP to HTTPS redirection
✅ Advanced rate limiting and DDoS protection
✅ File caching system for improved performance
✅ Thread pooling for efficient connection handling
✅ Comprehensive security headers and MIME type detection
✅ JSON-based configuration
✅ Detailed logging system with rotation

Security Features

✅ Buffer overflow prevention
✅ Path traversal protection
✅ Input sanitization
✅ SSL/TLS with modern cipher suites
✅ Security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame-Options, etc.)
✅ Rate limiting per IP
✅ Automatic HTTPS redirection

Performance Features

✅ Epoll-based asynchronous I/O
✅ Thread pool for connection handling
✅ File caching system
✅ SendFile() optimization for file transfers
✅ Keep-alive connection support
✅ TCP optimization (NODELAY, buffer sizes)

Build Instructions

Prerequisites

# Install required dependencies
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y \
    build-essential \
    libssl-dev \
    libcjson-dev \
    libmagic-dev \
    pkg-config

Compilation

# Using Make (recommended)
make        # Normal build
make debug  # Debug build
make release # Optimized release build

# Manual compilation
gcc server.c config_parser.c server_config.c -o server \
    -D_GNU_SOURCE \
    -Wall -Wextra -O2 \
    -lssl -lcrypto -lpthread -lmagic -lcjson

SSL Certificate Setup

# Create certificates directory
mkdir -p certs

# Generate self-signed certificate
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 \
    -keyout certs/key.pem \
    -out certs/cert.pem \
    -days 365 -nodes

Configuration

Create server.json:

{
    "port": 8080,
    "use_https": false,
    "log_file": "certs/server.log",
    "verbose": true,
    "max_threads": 32,
    "cache_size": 100,
    "rate_limit": {
        "window": 60,
        "max_requests": 100
    }
}

Directory Structure

mkdir -p www/{css,js,images}

Running the Server

# Allow ports
sudo ufw allow 8080/tcp  # HTTP
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp   # HTTPS

# Run the server
./server

Planned Features

Feature	Priority	Status
WebSocket Support	Medium	❌
User Authentication	High	❌
API Documentation	Medium	❌
Load Balancing	Low	❌
Security Audits	Medium	❌

Contributing

Fork the repository
Create your feature branch
Commit your changes
Push to the branch
Create a Pull Request

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Security

While this server implements various security measures, it's recommended to:

Use a reverse proxy (like Nginx) in production
Obtain proper SSL certificates (Let's Encrypt)
Regularly update dependencies
Monitor server logs
Conduct security audits

Acknowledgments

OpenSSL for SSL/TLS support
cJSON for configuration parsing
libmagic for MIME type detection

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