Project Description

In this project, you will be developing a multithreaded Web server and a simple web client. The Web server and Web client communicate using a text-based protocol called HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol).

Requirements for the Web server

• The server is able to handle multiple requests concurrently. This means the implementation is multithreaded. In the main thread, the server listens to a specified port, e.g., 8080. Upon receiving an HTTP request, the server sets up a TCP connection to the requesting client and serves the request in a separate thread. After sending the response back to the client, it closes the connection.
• The server is assumed to work with HTTP GET messages. If the requested file exists, the server responds with HTTP/1.1 200 OK together with the requested page to the client, otherwise it sends a corresponding error message, e.g., HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found or HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request.
• If running the server program using command line, the syntax should be:

server_code_name []

where the optional is the port on which the server is listening to connections from clients. If the port number is not entered, the default port 8080 is used.

• You can test your Web server implementation on your local machine using a Web browser, e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. You need to specify the used port number within the URL, for example,

http://localhost:8080/index.htm

If omitting the port number portion, i.e., 8080, the browser will use the default port 80.

• The server should response with a default page when users do not enter a specific page in the URL, for example,

http://localhost:8080/

It should also work when the request includes a path to the requested file, for example,

http://localhost:8080/path/to/file/example.htm

• You should display/log the request and header lines of request messages on the server for the purpose of debugging.

Requirements for the simple Web client

• The client is able to connect to the server via a socket and to request a page on the server.
• Upon receipt of the response message from the server, the client extracts and displays/logs the message status, and then retrieves the page content from the message body.

• If running the client program using command line, the syntax should be:

client_code_name [] []

where the is the IP address or name of the Web server, e.g., 127.0.0.1 or localhost for the server running on the local machine. The optional is the port on which the server is listening to connections from clients. If the port number is not entered, the default port 8080 is used. The optional is the name of the requested file, which may include the path to the file. If the file name is not entered, the default file index.htm is used.