updated extension

Author: Farsheed

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,358 @@
+
+This is a simple http server for pure static content.  You
+can use it to serve the content of a ftp server via http for
+example.  It is also nice to export some files the quick way
+by starting a http server in a few seconds, without editing
+some config file first.
+
+It uses sendfile() and knows how to use sendfile on linux and FreeBSD.
+Adding other systems shouldn't be difficult.  To use it with linux
+you'll need a 2.2.x kernel and glibc 2.1.
+
+There is some sendfile emulation code which uses a userland bounce
+buffer, this allows to compile and use webfs on systems without
+sendfile().
+
+
+Features/Design:
+================
+
+ * single process: select() + non-blocking I/O.
+ * trimmed to use as few system calls as possible per request.
+ * use sendfile to avoid copying data to userspace.
+ * optional thread support.  Every thread has its own select
+   loop then (compile time option, off by default, edit the
+   Makefile to turn it on).
+ * automatically generates directory listings when asked for a
+   directory (check for index.html available as option), caches
+   the listings.
+ * no config file, just a few switches.  Try "webfsd -h" for a
+   list, check the man page for a more indepth description.
+ * Uses /etc/mime.types to map file extentions to mime/types.
+ * Uses normal unix access rights, it will deliver every regular
+   file it is able to open for reading.  If you want it to serve
+   public-readable files only, make sure it runs as nobody/nogroup.
+ * supports keep-alive and pipelined requests.
+ * serves byte ranges.
+ * supports virtual hosts.
+ * supports ipv6.
+ * optional logging in common log file format.
+ * optional error logging (to syslog / stderr).
+ * limited CGI support (GET requests only).
+ * optional SSL support.
+
+
+Plans/BUGS/TODO
+===============
+
+ * figure out why the acroread plugin doesn't like my
+   multipart/byteranges responses.
+ * benchmarking / profiling.
+
+Don't expect much more features.  I want to keep it small and
+simple. It is supported to serve just files and to do this in a good
+and fast way.  It is supposed to be HTTP/1.1 (RfC 2068) compliant.
+Conditional compliant as there is no entity tag support.
+
+
+Compile/Install
+===============
+
+$ make
+$ su -c "make install"
+
+See INSTALL for more details.
+
+
+Tuning
+======
+
+The default for the number of parallel connections is very low (32),
+you might have to raise this.
+
+You probably don't get better performance by turning on threads.  For
+static content I/O bandwidth is the bottleneck.  My box easily fills
+up the network bandwidth while webfsd uses less than 10% CPU time
+(Pentium III/450 MHz, Fast Ethernet, Tulip card).
+
+You might win with threads if you have a very fast network connection
+and a lot of traffic.  The sendfile() system call blocks if it has to
+read from harddisk.  While one thread waits for data in sendfile(),
+another can keep the network card busy.  You'll probably get best
+results with a small number of threads (2-3) per CPU.
+
+Enough RAM probably also helps to speed up things.  Although webfs
+itself will not need very much memory, your kernel will happily use
+the memory as cache for the data sent out via sendfile().
+
+I have no benchmark numbers for webfsd.
+
+
+Security
+========
+
+I can't guarantee that there are no security flaws.  If you find one,
+report it as a bug.  I've done my very best while writing webfsd, I hope
+there are no serious bugs like buffer overflows (and no other bugs of
+course...).  If webfsd dumps core, you /have/ a problem; this really
+shouldn't happen.
+
+Don't use versions below 1.20, there are known security holes.
+
+
+Changes in 1.21
+===============
+
+  * large file support.
+  * s/sprintf/snprintf/ in some places.
+  * changed timestamp handling, webfs doesn't attempt to parse them
+    any more but does a strcmp of rfc1123 dates.
+  * access log uses local time not GMT now.
+  * some ssl/cgi cleanups (based on patches from Ludo Stellingwerff).
+  * misc fixes.
+
+
+Changes in 1.20
+===============
+
+  * CGI pipe setup bugfix.
+  * Don't allow ".." as hostname (security hole with vhosts enabled).
+  * fix buffer overflow in ls.c with very long file names.
+  * misc other fixes / cleanups.
+
+
+Changes in 1.19
+===============
+
+  * documentation spell fixes (Ludo Stellingwerff).
+  * added missing items (last two) to the 1.18 Changes notes
+    (pointed out by Jedi/Sector One <[email protected]>).
+  * Makefile changes.
+  * finished user home-directory support.
+
+
+Changes in 1.18
+===============
+
+  * added -j switch.
+  * compile fixes for the threaded version.
+  * use accept filters (FreeBSD).
+  * shuffled around access log locks.
+  * added optional SSL support (based on patches by
+    Ludo Stellingwerff <[email protected]>).
+  * run only the absolute needed code with root privileges
+    (bind+chroot) if installed suid-root.
+  * Makefile tweaks.
+  * fixed buffer overflow in request.c
+  * started user home-directory support.
+
+
+Changes in 1.17
+===============
+
+  * fix bug in request cleanup code (didn't cleanup properly after
+    byte-range requests, thus making webfsd bomb out on non-range
+    requests following a byte-range request on the same keep-alive
+    connection).
+
+
+Changes in 1.16
+===============
+
+  * fix bug in %xx handling (adding CGI support broke this).
+
+
+Changes in 1.14
+===============
+
+  * allways use Host: supplied hostname if needed (redirect, ...).
+  * added -4 / -6 switches.
+  * Added CGI support (GET requests only).
+  * compile fix for OpenBSD
+
+
+Changes in 1.13
+===============
+
+  * fixed a bug in Basic authentication.
+
+
+Changes in 1.11
+===============
+
+  * bumped the version number this time :-)
+  * small freebsd update (use strmode).
+  * added -e switch.
+
+
+Changes in 1.10
+===============
+
+  * fixed byte rage header parser to deal correctly with 64bit off_t.
+
+
+Changes in 1.9
+==============
+
+  * added pidfile support.
+
+
+Changes in 1.8
+==============
+
+  * added TCP_CORK support.
+
+
+Changes in 1.7
+==============
+
+  * one more security fix (drop secondary groups).
+  * catch malloc() failures in ls.c.
+
+
+Changes in 1.6
+==============
+
+  * security fix (parsing option '-n' did unchecked strcpy).
+  * documentation updates.
+
+
+Changes in 1.5
+==============
+
+  * fixed the sloppy usage of addrlen for the ipv6 name lookup
+    functions.  Linux worked fine, but the BSD folks have some
+    more strict checks...
+  * allow to write the access log to stdout (use "-" as filename)
+
+
+Changes in 1.4
+==============
+
+  * fixed a bug in the base64 decoder (which broke basic auth for some
+    user/passwd combinations)
+  * added virtual host support.
+  * webfsd can chroot to $DOCUMENT_ROOT now.
+
+
+Changes in 1.3
+==============
+
+  * overwrite the -b user:pw command line option to hide the password
+    (doesn't show up in ps anymore)
+
+
+Changes in 1.2
+==============
+
+  * added ipv6 support.
+  * bugfix in logfile timestamps.
+
+
+Changes in 1.1
+==============
+
+  * added basic authentication (one username/password for all files)
+
+
+Changes in 1.0
+==============
+
+  * added some casts to compile cleanly on Solaris.
+  * new -F flag (don't run as daemon).
+
+
+Changes in 0.9
+==============
+
+  * fixed a quoting bug.
+  * documentation updates, minor tweaks.
+
+
+Changes in 0.8
+==============
+
+  * fixed a bug in the directory cache.
+  * fixed uncatched malloc()/realloc() failures.
+  * added optional pthreads support.  Edit the Makefile to turn
+    it on.
+
+
+Changes in 0.7
+==============
+
+  * some portability problems fixed (0.6 didn't compile on FreeBSD).
+  * added a sendfile() emulation based on read()/write() as fallback
+    if there is no sendfile() available.
+  * bugfix: '#' must be quoted too...
+
+
+Changes in 0.6
+==============
+
+  * increased the listen backlog.
+  * optionally flush every logfile line to disk.
+  * new switch to specify the location of the mime.types file.
+  * byte range bug fixes.
+  * switch for the hostname has been changed ('-s' => '-n').
+  * optional log errors to the syslog (switch '-s').
+  * added sample start/stop script for RedHat.
+
+
+Changes in 0.5
+==============
+
+  * FreeBSD port (Charles Randall <[email protected]>)
+  * minor tweaks and spelling fixes.
+
+
+Changes in 0.4
+==============
+
+  * last-modified headers (and 304 responses) for directory listings.
+  * new switch: -f index.html (or whatever you want to use for
+    directory indices)
+  * killed the access() system calls in the ls() function.
+  * added cache for user/group names.
+  * wrote a manual page.
+
+
+Changes in 0.3
+==============
+
+  * multipart/byteranges improved:  You'll get a correct Content-length:
+    header for the whole thing, and we can handle keep-alive on these
+    requests now.
+  * bugfix: catch accept() failures.
+  * bugfix: quote the path in 302 redirect responses.
+  * accept absolute URLs ("GET http://host/path HTTP/1.1")
+  * fixed handling of conditional GET requests (hope it is RFC-Compilant
+    now...).
+  * bugfix: '+' must be quoted using %xx.
+
+
+Changes in 0.2
+==============
+
+  * added URL quoting.
+  * root can set uid/gid now.
+  * webfs ditches any setuid/setgid priviliges after binding to the
+    TCP port by setting effective to real uid/gid.  It should be safe
+    to install webfsd suid root to allow users to use ports below
+    1024 (and _only_ this of course).  If anyone finds a flaw in this
+    code drop me a note.
+  * more verbose directory listing.
+  * added logging. It does the usual logfile reopen on SIGHUP.
+
+
+Changes in 0.1
+==============
+
+  * first public release.
+
+
+Have fun,
+  Gerd
+
+-- 
+Gerd Knorr <[email protected]>