Writing a Report on a Web Server Program

(1)

Homework #2

Writing a Report on a Web Server Program

National Chiao Tung University

Chun-Jen Tsai

03/30/2012

(2)

Homework Highlights

For this homework, you have to do two things:

Study the source code of a mini web server program

1) Trace the structure of the program

2) Learn network programming using socket API by yourself

3) Understand the behavior of a server

Write a report and email it to the TA, by the end of 4/16.

TA’s email address: [email protected]. The report must be in the pdf file format.

Additionally, you can try to improve the program:

Adding more information to the server log

Improving the error handling mechanism of the server

Fix any bugs you find

(3)

Target Program: nweb.c

A mini web server program, nweb.c, can be downloaded from the class website

The program is a simple command line program (no GUI)

You can compile the program using Visual Studio 2008 or gcc for Win32 (e.g. MinGW)

The server, “nweb.exe”, is a command line program

The server listens to TCP port 80 for the HTTP traffics

All the web pages should be stored in “c:\public_html”

You can use any web browser (e.g. IE) to connect to the server and browse the web pages

The server generates a log file, nweb.syslog, that records http requests from all clients

(4)

Study nweb.c and Write a Report

Your report

^†

should contain at least four sections:

Introduction

Give a general introduction to how the client/server model of web server & web browser works; or the concept of socket programming

Program analysis

Describe your understanding of the program. You can use block diagrams to explain the algorithm of the program

If you find any bugs in the program, you can also make some comments in this section

Improvements

You can discuss on how to add functions to this web server

Discussions and Conclusions

Summarize what you have learned from this homework

(5)

Comments on Network Programming

Network programming is usually based on the BSD socket library.

Hence, some people refer to network programming as

“socket programming”

Microsoft Windows has its own version of socket library, called Winsock library

Winsock is very similar to the BSD socket, but not 100%

compatible

(6)

Web Resources for Socket Programming

Winsock programming guides

http://www.madwizard.org/programming/tutorials/netcpp/1

General BSD socket programming guides

http://www.beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/multipage/index.html

(7)

Writing a Report on a Web Server Program

Homework #2