NxLite

A lightweight HTTP server written in C with caching and compression features.

✨ Features

Core HTTP Server

HTTP/1.1 Support: GET and HEAD methods
Static File Serving: Serves files from a configurable document root
Keep-Alive Connections: Persistent connections support
MIME Type Detection: Automatic content-type headers
ETag Support: Conditional requests with If-None-Match headers

Caching System

In-Memory Response Caching: Hash-based cache for static assets
304 Not Modified Responses: Efficient handling of unchanged content
Configurable Cache TTL: Time-based cache expiration
Cache Size Limits: Configurable maximum number of cached responses

Compression

Gzip/Deflate Support: Automatic content compression
Content-Type Aware: Compression based on MIME types
Client Negotiation: Respects Accept-Encoding headers

Security Features

Path Traversal Protection: Prevents directory traversal attacks
Request Size Limits: Configurable maximum request sizes
Input Sanitization: Prevents log injection attacks
Security Headers: X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, X-XSS-Protection, etc.
DoS Protection: Rate limiting, connection limits, and attack mitigation

Architecture

Master-Worker Model: Multi-process architecture
Event-Driven I/O: Uses epoll for non-blocking operations
Memory Pooling: Custom memory management
CPU Affinity: Worker processes bound to specific CPU cores

🛠️ Building and Setup

Prerequisites

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential cmake libz-dev

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install gcc cmake make zlib-devel

# macOS
brew install cmake

Build Instructions

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/dexter-xD/NxLite.git
cd NxLite

# Create build directory
mkdir build && cd build

# Configure and build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

🚀 Running the Server

Basic Usage

# Run with default configuration
./build/NxLite

# Run with custom config file
./build/NxLite server.conf

# Run in background
./build/NxLite server.conf &

Development Mode

Development mode disables DoS protection features for easier testing:

# Enable development mode
./build/NxLite server.conf --dev
./build/NxLite server.conf -d

# Or via configuration file
echo "development_mode=true" >> server.conf

Note: Development mode should never be used in production environments.

⚙️ Configuration

Example Configuration (`server.conf`)

# Basic Settings
port=7877
worker_processes=8
root=../static

# Connection Settings
max_connections=100000
keep_alive_timeout=120

# Caching
cache_timeout=3600
cache_size=10000

# Development
development_mode=false

# Logging
log=./logs/access.log

Configuration Options

Parameter	Default	Description
`port`	7877	Server listening port
`worker_processes`	4	Number of worker processes
`root`	../static	Document root directory
`max_connections`	10000	Maximum concurrent connections
`keep_alive_timeout`	60	Keep-alive timeout (seconds)
`cache_timeout`	3600	Response cache TTL (seconds)
`cache_size`	10000	Maximum cached responses
`development_mode`	false	Enable/disable development mode
`log`	./logs/access.log	Access log file path

📋 Logging and Monitoring

Log Files

The server generates logs in the configured log directory:

# View access logs
tail -f logs/access.log

# Check for errors
grep "ERROR\|WARN" logs/access.log

Log Format

Access logs include:

Timestamp
Log level (INFO, WARN, ERROR, DEBUG)
Process information
Request details
Response status
Security events

Health Checks

# Basic connectivity test
curl -I http://localhost:7877/

# Test compression
curl -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip" -v http://localhost:7877/

# Test caching
curl -H "If-None-Match: \"some-etag\"" http://localhost:7877/

🧪 Testing

Security Testing

cd benchmark

# Run vulnerability tests
./vulnerability_test.sh

# Run DoS protection tests
./dos_protection_test.sh

Functionality Testing

cd benchmark

# Basic functionality testing
./quick_test.sh

# Comprehensive feature testing
./comprehensive_test.sh

# Load testing
./production_test.sh

Testing Suite

The benchmark/ directory contains a comprehensive testing suite with:

Security Tests: Vulnerability scanning and DoS protection validation
Functionality Tests: HTTP features, caching, and compression testing
Load Tests: Stress testing and concurrent connection handling
Lua Scripts: Various test scenarios for different use cases

See benchmark/README.md for detailed testing documentation.

Manual Testing

# Test basic functionality
curl http://localhost:7877/

# Test different file types
curl http://localhost:7877/index.html
curl http://localhost:7877/style.css
curl http://localhost:7877/script.js

# Test compression
curl -H "Accept-Encoding: gzip" http://localhost:7877/large-file.html

🔧 Development

Debug Mode

For debugging, you can run the server with additional logging:

# Enable debug logging (if implemented)
./build/NxLite server.conf --debug

# Run with valgrind for memory checking
valgrind --leak-check=full ./build/NxLite server.conf

Directory Structure

NxLite/
├── src/           # Source code
├── include/       # Header files
├── static/        # Default document root
├── logs/          # Log files
├── benchmark/     # Testing scripts
├── build/         # Build output
└── server.conf    # Configuration file

📝 License

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

🤝 Contributing

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

Development Setup

# Install development tools
sudo apt install valgrind gdb clang-format

# Run tests
cd benchmark
./vulnerability_test.sh
./dos_protection_test.sh

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 20 Commits
benchmark		benchmark
include		include
src		src
static		static
.gitignore		.gitignore
CMakeLists.txt		CMakeLists.txt
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
server.conf		server.conf

License

dexter-xD/NxLite

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