CSC361 tutorial 2

CSC361: Tutorial 2
Go through P1 specifications Demo with Nginx Simple design idea

Objectives
• Use the STREAM socket (i.e., supported by TCP) in Python to create a Simple Web Server (SWS) with select() supporting both persistent and non-persistent HTTP connections.
• you need to use select() and non-blocking socket() to complete P1 as a preparation for P2.

SWS requirements
• Support following HTTP request • GET /filename HTTP/1.0
• Support following HTTP header when supporting persistent HTTP connection
• Connection: keep-alive • Connection: close
• If unsupported commands are received or in unrecognized format, • respond “HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request”.
• If the file indicated by filename is inaccessible, • respond “HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found”
• For successful requests,
• SWS will respond “HTTP/1.0 200 OK”

Example: HTTP Request
• HTTP Request = Request-line + Header-fields
• Request-line (Case-sensitive):
• GET /filename HTTP/1.0
• Each header field consists of a case-insensitive field name followed by a colon (“:”), optional leading whitespace, the field value, and optional trailing whitespace.
• Correct format:
• “GET /filename HTTP/1.0\r\nConnection:Keep-alive\r\n\r\n”
• “GET /filename HTTP/1.0\r\nConnection: keep-alive\r\n\r\n” • “GET /filename HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n”
• On Unix-like OS, “\n” = “\r\n”

Example: HTTP Response
• HTTP Response = Response-line + Header-fields
• Response
• HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request
• HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found • HTTP/1.0 200 OK
• Header-fields (only to persistent connections) • Connection: Keep-alive

Example: 400 Bad Request
• Your server should return
• “HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request\r\n\r\n”
when receiving the following requests:
• “get /filename HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n” Case-sensitive
• “GET/filename HTTP/1.0\r\nConnection:Keep-alive\r\n\r\n” Space-sensitive • “go /filename HTTP\r\n\r\n” Words incorrect or missing
• For any bad requests, the connection will be immediately closed by your server regardless of the connection field in the request.

Example: 404 Not Found
• Your server should return
• “HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found\r\nConnection: keep-alive\r\n\r\n”
when the request file does not exist and “Connection: Keep-alive” is in the request
• Your server should return
• “HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found\r\nConnection: close\r\n\r\n”
when the request file does not exist and “Connection: Keep-alive” is not in the request

Example: 200 OK
• Your server should return
• “HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\nConnection: Keep-alive\r\n\r\n”
when the request file exists and “Connection: Keep-alive” is in the request
• Your server should return • “HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\n\r\n”
when the request file exists and “Connection: Keep-alive” is not in the request

How to run SWS
• Open H2 in Piconet
• python3 sws.py ip_address port_number
• ip_address and port_number indicate where SWS binds its socket for incoming requests
• On H1 in PicoNet
• nc sws_ip_address sws_port_number
• type “GET /sws.py HTTP/1.0” followed by “Connection: keep-alive” and an empty line to request the file sws.py from SWS

SWS Output
• On H2 where you run sws:
• For each served request, even if unsuccessfully, SWS will output a log line
• “time: client_ip:client_port request; response”,
• e.g., “Wed Sep 15 21:44:35 PDT 2021: 192.168.1.100:54321 GET /sws.py HTTP/1.0; HTTP/1.0 200 OK”.
• On H1 where you run nc:
• In the aforementioned case, SWS shall keep the connection alive after sending back sws.py following an empty line after “Connection: keep-alive”, and wait for the next request from the same client through the same TCP connection, until the connection times out, i.e., “Connection: close”
• If the client does not include “Connection: keep-alive” or does include “Connection: close” in its request, SWS will close the connection after serving the request.

How to test SWS
1. 200 test: request an existing small-size file
2. 404 test: request a non-existing file
3. 400 test: send a bad request
4. Persistent connection test: send request with connection: keep-alive, and then send another request
5. Non-persistent connection test: send a request with connection: close
6. Large-file test: request a large-size file
7. Multi-client test: send persistent connection for a large-size file from h1, and send another connection from r
8. Timeout test: send a persistent connection and wait for 30s

How to check correctness
• Compare the returned messages with Nginx
• Nginx is a open-source web server
• The root directory for nginx is /var/www/html
• Put small and large files to this directory, then start nginx on h2 by command “service nginx start”

Simple design idea
import select import socket import sys import queue import time import re
# Create a TCP/IP socket
server = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
# set the socket to non-blocking mode
server.setblocking(0)
# bind address, server_address is defined by the input
server.bind(server_address)
# Listen for incoming connections
server.listen(5)

Create list to watch
# Sockets to watch for readability
inputs = [server]
# Sockets to watch for writability
outputs = []
# Outgoing message queues (socket:Queue)
response_messages = {}
# request message
request_message = {}

Handle readable sockets, if the readable socket is the server socket
while True:
# Wait for at least one of the sockets to be ready for processing
readable, writable, exceptional = select.select(inputs, outputs, inputs, timeout) for s in readable:
if s is server, accept new connection, and append new connection socket to the list to watch for readability

Handle readable sockets, if the readable socket is the connection socket
#Receive message from the receiving buffer
message = s.recv(1024).decode() if message:
#If message is not empty, we add the message to the queue for further process if format is correct
request_message[s] = request_message[s] + message
if find “\r\n\r\n” or “\n\n” at the end of the message, we can process the whole message:
whole_message = request_message[s]
#add connection socket s to the list for writable, as we will send back messages
outputs,append(s)
for each line of whole_message :
if format of the line is not correct:
response_messages{s} += “HTTP/1.0 400 Bad Request”
#Add response messages accordingly

Handle writable sockets
for s in writable :
#get messages from response_message{s}
next_msg = message_queues[s].get_nowait()
except queue.Empty:
accordingly
#check if timeout or connection is persistent or not, and close socket
#send messages and print logs if finish responding to a request if s not in readable, writable, exception: #process timeout event

Note that we use request_message = {} to accumulate the request messages for each socket, and do not process the message until we reach the end of the request.
The reason is that for a connection, multiple requests can be arrived at the same time.
This feature is important as we will use an automatic tester which sends multiple requests simultaneously to evaluate your server

• To test your server whether this feature is enabled, you can create a text file (call test.txt) as follows:
GET /notfound HTTP/1.0 Connection:keep-alive
GET /hello.html HTTP/1.0 Connection:keep-alive
get /hello.html http/1.0 Connection:keep-alive
GET /notfound HTTP/1.0 Connection:keep-alive
• nc ip_address port < test.txt