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attender

THIS LIBRARY WILL WAS REPLACED WITH: https://github.com/5cript/roar

A windows/linux RESTful webservice server library built using boost::asio. (important! License changed to more permissive BSL 1.0 on master. Link back is no longer required)

  1. Features
  2. Documentation
  3. Dependencies
  4. Build
  5. Basics
  6. Tutorial

Features

What does attender have:

  • SSL/TLS
  • rudamentary session support
  • cookies
  • expressjs like interface
  • sending chunked encoding

What does attender not have (yet):

  • Built in JSON / XML support. But its not needed. Using nlohmann json with this feels great.
  • custom error code pages. (planed)
  • HTTP/2 (not planed)

Documentation

Doxygen documentation is available in the wiki. https://github.com/5cript/attender/wiki

Dependencies and Requirements

  • C++17 compliant compiler (clang++, g++, MSVC (VC2019))
  • boost asio
  • boost filesystem
  • openssl
  • (optional) libbrotli

How to build

This project provides a cmake file (for a static library).

  • mkdir build
  • cd build
  • cmake .. (add '-G "MSYS Makefiles"' if you build with msys2)
  • make

Visual Studio ist not extensively supported or tested. But should work with minor tweaks and a relatively new boost and robust C++17 support. When using this library, you have to link ssl, boost_system, boost_filesystem, ws2_32, pthread, mswsock, atomic. Depends on your setup and usage.

Basics

managed_io_context

The managed io context is a wrapper for boost::asio::io_service. It accepts some kind of attender::async_model which handels the usage of the io_service. You can subclass attender::async_model and provide your own implementation. You can use io_context/thread_pooler.hpp as an example.

ssl_context_interface

SSL/TLS servers need a ssl_context. Due to security implications, no guarantees are made for the provided "ssl_example_context" and I highly suggest for you to implement it on your own, if security is highly critical. The provided implementation shall serve as an example, but is fully functional for server only certificates.

callbacks

Almost all callbacks to registered routings provide a request_handler and a response_handler. These callbacks are called through the io_service run method and do not provide thread safety to the outside of the callback. The end of any successful request has to be a call to some send function, or to the end function of the response_handler, otherwise there will be no termination of request -> the client will "hang".

request_handler

The request_handler, abbreviated req in all the examples, is responsible for doing everything on the request. It can read the request header and the content of the request.

response_handler

The response_handler, abbreviated res in all the examples, is used to respond to a request. You can respond with just a header or with content from various sources, but only one send instruction can be issued. You cannot for instance send a string followed by stream. The most important thing is to end your common handler with a send or end instruction. This is vital, or otherwise the connection will not be closed or deleted!

Sessions

Sessions need a session_manager, which in turn requires a session_storage. This library only provides a memory_session_storage, which keeps all sessions in memory. But this has the drawback, that sessions do not persist the program and cannot be shared between multiple server instances. I recommend you to write a database session storage by subclassing the session_storage_interface. More implementations (mysql, sqlite) might follow in the future in different git repositories.

Tutorial

How to create a server

The following code example shows how to create a server and runs it on port 80.

#include <attender/attender.hpp>

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    using namespace attender;

    // an io_service wrapper for boost::asio::io_service.
    // you can provide your own implementation, by subclassing "attender::async_model".
    managed_io_context <thread_pooler> context;

    // create a server
    http_server server(context.get_io_service(),
        [](auto* connection, auto const& ec, auto const& exc) {
            // some error occured. (this is not thread safe)
            // You MUST check the error code here, because some codes mean, that the connection went kaputt!
            // Accessing the connection might be invalid then / crash you.
            if (ec.value() == boost::system::errc::protocol_error)
            {
                std::cout << connection->get_remote_address() << ":" << connection->get_remote_port() << "\n";
            }
            std::cerr << ec << " " << exc.what() << "\n";
        }
    );

    // start server on port 80. Numbers are also valid
    server.start("http");

    // PAUSE
}

How to create a secure server

#include <attender/attender.hpp>

#include <openssl/err.h>

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    using namespace attender;

    // an io_service wrapper for boost::asio::io_service.
    // you can provide your own implementation, by subclassing "attender::async_model".
    managed_io_context <thread_pooler> context;

    // create a server
    http_secure_server server(                     
        // boost::asio::io_service
        context.get_io_service(),
                             
        // An SSL context
        std::make_unique <attender::ssl_context_interface> {ssl_example_context("key.pem", "cert.pem")},
                             
        // An error callback. (here with OpenSSL demangling)
        [](auto* connection, auto const& ec, auto const& exc) {
            std::cerr << "error: " << ec << "\n";

            std::string err = ec.message();
            if (ec.category() == boost::asio::error::get_ssl_category()) {
                err =   std::string(" (")
                      + std::to_string(ERR_GET_LIB(ec.value()))+","
                      + std::to_string(ERR_GET_FUNC(ec.value()))+","
                      + std::to_string(ERR_GET_REASON(ec.value()))+") "
                ;
                //ERR_PACK /* crypto/err/err.h */
                char buf[128];
                ::ERR_error_string_n(ec.value(), buf, sizeof(buf));
                err += buf;
            }
            std::cerr << "\t" << err << "\n";
        }
    );

    // start server on port 443. Numbers are also valid
    server.start("https");

    // PAUSE
}

How to add routings

#include <attender/attender.hpp>

#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    /* Create normal or secure server */
  
    // this will route every GET request for "/test" to this handler
    server.get("/test", [](auto req, auto res) {
         // not threadsafe use of cout
         std::cout << "Someone requested localhost/test\n";
         
         // reply with empty response. (and close connection!)
         res->send_status(204);
    });
    
    // this route shows regex capabilities and path parameters.
    server.get("/\\w*/:param1", [](auto req, auto res) {
        std::cout << req->param("param1") << "\n";
        res->redirect("http://www.google.com:80", 301).end();
    });
    
    server.start(80);
}

How to read

#include <attender/attender.hpp>

int main() 
{
    /* Create normal or secure server */

    server.post("/read_test", [](auto req, auto res) {
        // The buffer needs to keep alive. For this example a shared pointer is used.
        // But this is not required!
        auto monster = std::make_shared <std::string>();
        req->read_body(*monster).then(
            [monster{monster}, res]()
            {
                std::cout << "all done!\n";
                std::cout << *monster << "\n";
                // end with 204 OK
                res->status(204).end();
            }
        ).except(
            [extender{monster}](boost::system::error_code ec)
            {
                // something went wrong!
                // res, req got freed!
                std::cout << "except\n";
                
                // do not call res->end or similar here!
                // the connection terminated already!
            }
        );
    });
    
    server.start(80);

Chunked Encoding (write only)

#include <attender/attender.hpp>

int main() 
{
    /* Create normal or secure server */

    server.get("/chunky", [](auto req, auto res)
    {
        // Creates a streaming producer.
        // The streaming producer is meant as an example implementation of 'producer'.
        // But it can be used for very very simple data streaming.
        auto produ = std::make_shared <streaming_producer>()
            {
                "identity", // encoding, identity in this case.
                [&produ]()
                {
                    // on after setup completion. 
                },
                [](auto ec)
                {
                    // Some error occured. Most likely error: an aborted connection
                    std::cout << "chunky ec: " << ec << "\n";
                }
            }
        );

        // creating a thread that produces some data to shove into the connection.
        auto blab = std::make_shared <std::thread>([produ](){
            // wait for the connection to setup.
            produ->wait_for_consumer();

            int c = 0;
            // while the connection is up:
            while(produ->has_consumer_attached())
            {
                // write into the stream:
                *produ << "asdf";
                std::this_thread::sleep_for(500ms);
                ++c;
                if (c > 20)
                {
                    // this has to be called in order to gracefully end the transmission.
                    // the connection will persist forever otherwise.
                    produ->finish();
                    return;
                }
            }
        });

        // now do the actual call.
        res->send_chunked(*produ, [produ, blab](auto e) {
            std::cout << "connection ended" << std::endl;
            
            // join the producer thread when the connection ends if joinable.
            if (blab->joinable())
                blab->join();
        });
        
        // do NOT use res anymore here. send_chunked is like send and end in the way
        // that res must not be used after calling these functions.
    });
    
    server.start(80);

How to write

server.get("/write_test", [](auto req, auto res) {
    res->send("Hello World!");
});

Mounting

The following example mounts /home/username to the url /mnt. The callback in this case does not do any response related stuff, but instead is only for checking the request. The return value of the callback determines whether or not the request shall proceed.

server.mount("/home/username", "/mnt", [](auto req, auto mres) {
    if (/*...*/) // I do not like this request! STOP THIS AT ONCE! (will return 403)
        return false;
    else // you may proceed
        return true;
// allow for GET, HEAD, OPTIONS and POST methods
}, {mount_options::GET, mount_options::HEAD, mount_options::OPTIONS, mount_options::POST})

Sessions

This is example shows how to get, create and delete a session.

#include <attender/attender.hpp>
#include <attender/session/session_manager.hpp>
#include <attender/session/memory_session_storage.hpp>
#include <attender/session/uuid_session_cookie_generator.hpp>

int main()
{
    using namespace attender;
    managed_io_context <thread_pooler> io_ctx;
    
    session_manager sessions {
        std::make_unique <memory_session_storage <uuid_generator, session>>()
    };

    // normal server for simplicity, secure server ofc also possible.
    http_server server(io_ctx.get_io_service(),
        [](auto* connection, auto const& ec) {
            std::cerr << "ERROR: " << ec << "\n";
        }
    );
    
    // make new session and terminate old, if there is one.
    server.get("/auth", [&sessions](auto req, auto res) {
        SessionType sess;
        auto state = sessions.load_session ("MYID", sess, req);
        if (state == session_state::live)
            sessions.terminate_session(sess);
        auto newSession = sessions.make_session <SessionType> ();

        cookie ck;
        ck.set_name("MYID").set_value(newSession.id());
        res->set_cookie(ck);
        res->send("ok");
        std::cout << "ok\n";
    });
}