A high-performance web server written in pure C, inspired by Nginx architecture.

• Event-driven architecture using epoll for high performance
• Multi-threaded worker processes for concurrent connections
• HTTP/1.1 protocol support
• Static file serving with MIME type detection
• Access and error logging
• Configurable via command line options
• Non-blocking I/O for scalability
• Zero external dependencies - pure C implementation

┌─────────────┐
│   Master    │
│   Process   │
└──────┬──────┘
       │
       ├─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┐
       │             │             │             │
   ┌───▼───┐     ┌───▼───┐     ┌───▼───┐     ┌───▼───┐
   │Worker 1│     │Worker 2│     │Worker 3│     │Worker N│
   └───┬───┘     └───┬───┘     └───┬───┘     └───┬───┘
       │             │             │             │
   ┌───▼─────────────▼─────────────▼─────────────▼───┐
   │              Event Loop (epoll)                │
   └──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

# Build the project
make

# Clean build artifacts
make clean

# Rebuild from scratch
make rebuild

# Build with debug symbols
make debug

# Start server with default settings (port 8080, 4 workers)
./bin/nginx

# Start server on custom port
./bin/nginx -p 9000

# Start with specific number of workers
./bin/nginx -w 8

# Run as daemon
./bin/nginx -d

# Test configuration
./bin/nginx -t

# Show help
./bin/nginx -h

# Show version
./bin/nginx -v

Option	Description	Default
-p, --port PORT	Set listen port	8080
-w, --workers NUM	Number of worker processes	4
-d, --daemon	Run as daemon	false
-t, --test	Test configuration	-
-v, --version	Show version	-
-h, --help	Show help	-

nginx-c/
├── src/
│   ├── nginx.c      # Main entry point
│   ├── config.h/c   # Configuration management
│   ├── master.c/h   # Master process management
│   ├── worker.c/h   # Worker process implementation
│   ├── event.c/h    # Event loop (epoll wrapper)
│   ├── http.c/h     # HTTP protocol parsing
│   └── log.c/h      # Logging system
├── html/            # Static files directory
│   └── index.html   # Default welcome page
├── logs/            # Log files directory
├── obj/             # Build objects
├── bin/             # Build output
└── Makefile         # Build configuration

The server uses a simple configuration system:

typedef struct {
    int port;                    // Listen port
    int worker_processes;        // Number of workers
    int worker_connections;      // Connections per worker
    char access_log[MAX_PATH_LEN];
    char error_log[MAX_PATH_LEN];
    char pid_file[MAX_PATH_LEN];
    int daemon;
    server_config_t server;
} global_config_t;

Default settings:

• Port: 8080
• Workers: 4
• Document Root: ./html
• Index file: index.html

Start the server and access it in a browser:

./bin/nginx
# Then visit: http://localhost:8080

Test with curl:

curl http://localhost:8080
curl -I http://localhost:8080

Logs are written to:

• logs/access.log - HTTP access logs
• logs/error.log - Error messages

Log format:

[2025-02-15 10:30:45.123] [INFO] Server listening on port 8080
127.0.0.1 - - [15/Feb/2025:10:30:50 +0000] "GET /index.html HTTP/1.1" 200 1234

• HTTP Methods: GET, POST, HEAD, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS
• Keep-alive connections
• Static file serving with MIME types
• Directory listing with index files
• Non-blocking I/O
• Signal handling (SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGHUP)

The server is designed for high performance:

• Uses edge-triggered epoll
• Non-blocking sockets
• Multi-threaded workers
• Minimal memory copying

• Input validation
• Buffer overflow protection
• Path traversal prevention (basic)
• Resource limits

This is an educational project demonstrating web server implementation.

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.

• Configuration file support (nginx.conf style)
• HTTPS/TLS support
• FastCGI support
• gzip compression
• Virtual hosts
• URL rewriting
• Reverse proxy
• Load balancing
• WebSocket support
• Cache system
• Rate limiting

Created as a demonstration of web server implementation in pure C.