cern-httpd-2

Ever wondered what the first web server looked like running?

Ever wondered what the first web page looked like?

This repository allows you to run the very first web server, created by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, and serve the first web page ever, right from your computer!

This is made possible through Docker containerization and some changes/retrofits I made to this old C code, including:

• Empty string check: from SH to BASH.

  The script was written for SH and not for the later BASH shell. Modern shells like BASH support == within [[ ... ]] but not in [ ... ]. The modern -z operator is used to check if a string is empty.

• Include any missing <time.h>.

  Modern compilers and linkers often follow stricter rules for linking libraries and do not include additional libraries unless explicitly specified.

• Custom types for variables related to Linux sockets.

  Back then, everything used the int type! Today, things are more specialized, and there are custom types for variables related to Linux sockets, like socklen_t.

• Remove sys_errlist.

  In more recent systems and libraries, the sys_errlist buffer array has been replaced by strerror and errno buffer outputs.

• Update Makefile.include for Linux to include -lcrypt.

  Modern compilers and linkers often follow stricter rules for linking libraries and do not include additional libraries unless explicitly specified.

Dependencies

• Docker
• Docker Compose
• Make

For Ubuntu, just run:

sudo snap install docker
sudo apt-get install make

How to Run

sudo docker-compose up -d --build

or

sudo make start

Then, open your browser and navigate to http://localhost

How to Stop

sudo docker-compose down

or

sudo make stop

Easter Eggs

404

Navigate to any page that doesn’t exist, such as localhost/qwertyuiop.

You’ll get a nice CERN 404 error page:

Error 404
Not found - file doesn't exist or is read protected [even tried multi]

CERN-HTTPD 3.0A

"Document follows"

Open a terminal and type curl -I localhost.

The curl -I command sends a request to the specified address, but instead of displaying the returned document, it shows information about the connection.

HTTP/1.0 200 Document follows
Server: CERN/3.0A
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2024 10:59:09 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 2217
Last-Modified: Thu, 03 Dec 1992 08:37:20 GMT

Aside from the cool Server: CERN/3.0A and Last-Modified: Thu, 03 Dec 1992 08:37:20 GMT, we see the Document follows appendix in the first line, which is non-standard by today’s standards!

Logs

I believe, the logs of this server are very interesting in themselves !

You can find an example here : doc/logs.md

Configuration

You can change the port by modifying the PORT value in the .env file.

The conf/httpd.conf file is not meant to be configured, as it is loaded by this very old software. However, if you feel like, you can still experiment with it.

The content of the www directory is what gets copied and acts as the server's root directory. You can modify the content there as you wish.

Development

Most of this project is simply a wrapper to make it work both locally and with Docker.

For example, the www folder contains documents meant to be served.

Few exceptions are those that deserve the most attention during development of this project :

• The deps folder includes dependencies, such as a tarball of the original CERN httpd code (you can find the source below in "Resources").
• The patch folder contains only the modified files necessary to make CERN httpd functional in modern environments. It includes updated copies of the original files, maintaining the same directory structure, but only for the files that have changed. To apply the patch, copy the contents of the patch folder into a directory containing the original CERN httpd source code. This will update the source code to ensure compatibility with today's systems. (This process is part of what the Docker wrapper handles, among other tasks.)

CERN notice

This product includes computer software created and made available by CERN. This acknowledgement shall be mentioned in full in any product which includes the CERN computer software included herein or parts thereof.

Resources

• CERN HTTPd source code: https://www.w3.org/Daemon/httpd/w3c-httpd-3.0A.tar.gz
• First web site source code: https://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html