Dumb HTTP server

Overview

The sockets/dumb_http_server sample application for Zephyr implements a skeleton HTTP server using a BSD Sockets compatible API. The purpose of this sample is to show how it’s possible to develop a sockets application portable to both POSIX and Zephyr. As such, this HTTP server example is kept very minimal and does not really parse an incoming HTTP request, just reads and discards it, and always serve a single static page. Even with such simplification, it is useful as an example of a socket application which can be accessed via a conventional web browser, or to perform performance/regression testing using existing HTTP diagnostic tools.

The source code for this sample application can be found at: samples/net/sockets/dumb_http_server.

Requirements

• Networking with the host system

• or, a board with hardware networking

Building and Running

Build the Zephyr version of the sockets/echo application like this:

west build -b <board_to_use> samples/net/sockets/dumb_http_server

After the sample starts, it expects connections at 192.0.2.1, port 8080. The easiest way to connect is by opening a following URL in a web browser: http://192.0.2.1:8080/ . You should see a page with a sample content about Zephyr (captured at a particular time from Zephyr’s web site, note that it may differ from the content on the live Zephyr site). Alternatively, a tool like curl can be used:

$ curl http://192.0.2.1:8080/

Finally, you can run an HTTP profiling/load tool like Apache Bench (ab) against the server:

$ ab -n10 http://192.0.2.1:8080/

-n parameter specifies the number of HTTP requests to issue against a server.

Running application on POSIX Host

The same application source code can be built for a POSIX system, e.g. Linux. (Note: if you look at the source, you will see that the code is the same except the header files are different for Zephyr vs POSIX.)

To build:

$ make -f Makefile.host

To run:

$ ./socket_dumb_http

To test, connect to http://127.0.0.1:8080/ , and follow the steps in the previous section.

As can be seen, the behavior of the application is the same as the Zephyr version.