3 ms·

C++ Web Server on my custom hobby OS

102 points by joexbayer 1y ago

roetlich 1y ago
Very cool! Why was and the entire networking stack straight forward, but not HTTP (and TCP)? Could you take inspiration form other projects for things like DNS?
- joexbayer 1y ago
  Up to TCP most protocols are very straight forward, atleast getting them to work semi reliable. But then TCP explodes in complexity with all the state management and possible paths a connection can take. HTTP is mostly annoying because of all the text parsing :D
  - sweetjuly 1y ago
    Yeah...HTTP/1 is one of those weird cases where the older protocol is considerably more difficult to implement correctly than the newer ""more complex"" standard. This is especially true if you want your server to work with they myriad of questionably compliant clients out in the world. HTTP/3 might have been easier, and using QUIC+HTTP/3 in your hobby OS is a fun flex :)
    - merb 1y ago
      I don’t think that http/3 is easier to implement than http/1.1 especially since h3 is stateful where http/1.1 is not. Especially not when everything should be working correctly and securely because the spec does not always tell about these things. Oh and multiplexing is quite a hard thing to do especially when you are also dealing with a state machine and each of your clients can be malicious.
      - codys 1y ago
        I can't speak to http/3 (I haven't tried to impl it), but I can say that a bare-bones http/2 is very easy to implement because it doesn't try to pretend to be prose.
    - kragen 1y ago
      httpdito http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/server.s http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/server.s implements HTTP/1.0 GET in about 320 machine instructions, and I haven't yet found a questionably compliant client that doesn't work with it. Writeup in http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/httpdito-readme http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/httpdito-readme.
yupyupyups 1y ago
You should add OpenAPI generation. So that basically the endpoint /openapi.json is auto-generated.
- winrid 1y ago
  related - someone should take a stab at actually finishing this :) https://github.com/drogonframework/drogon/issues/988 https://github.com/drogonframework/drogon/issues/988
- nesarkvechnep 1y ago
  Like most thing in web development, this is backwards. Applications should be generated from the spec, not the other way around.
  - yupyupyups 1y ago
    Care to explain the advantage of starting off with the spec rather than with code?
    - nesarkvechnep 1y ago
      Because, you can iterate on the spec with all the stakeholders without ever writing a line of business logic. There are tools which can create a dummy web server from the specification and you can build clients without implementing business logic. I thought the advantages of spec-first development are obvious but I hope I helped.
      - yupyupyups 1y ago
        Thanks. The advantages of having a spec is obvious to me as well. I'm just not sure why building business logic that generates the spec (that generates the client) is a bad idea. That way you still have a single source of truth, and a spec.
slurrpurr 1y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
canyp 1y ago
Great website, massive rabbit hole I didn't know existed. There's a verified Ada/SPARK OS in there...
Aldipower 1y ago
"After a long break from working on my hobby operating system, I finally got back into it and finished a very important milestone" This is a sign of great engineering. Code gets foreign code after some time of not being in it. If you easily can pick it up again, it is a sign that you've written maintainable and understandable code, also for others.

102 points by joexbayer 1y ago

Very cool! Why was and the entire networking stack straight forward, but not HTTP (and TCP)? Could you take inspiration form other projects for things like DNS?

joexbayer 1y ago
Up to TCP most protocols are very straight forward, atleast getting them to work semi reliable. But then TCP explodes in complexity with all the state management and possible paths a connection can take. HTTP is mostly annoying because of all the text parsing :D
- sweetjuly 1y ago
  Yeah...HTTP/1 is one of those weird cases where the older protocol is considerably more difficult to implement correctly than the newer ""more complex"" standard. This is especially true if you want your server to work with they myriad of questionably compliant clients out in the world. HTTP/3 might have been easier, and using QUIC+HTTP/3 in your hobby OS is a fun flex :)
  - merb 1y ago
    I don’t think that http/3 is easier to implement than http/1.1 especially since h3 is stateful where http/1.1 is not. Especially not when everything should be working correctly and securely because the spec does not always tell about these things. Oh and multiplexing is quite a hard thing to do especially when you are also dealing with a state machine and each of your clients can be malicious.
    - codys 1y ago
      I can't speak to http/3 (I haven't tried to impl it), but I can say that a bare-bones http/2 is very easy to implement because it doesn't try to pretend to be prose.
  - kragen 1y ago
    httpdito http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/server.s http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/server.s implements HTTP/1.0 GET in about 320 machine instructions, and I haven't yet found a questionably compliant client that doesn't work with it. Writeup in http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/httpdito-readme http://canonical.org/~kragen/sw/dev3/httpdito-readme.

yupyupyups 1y ago

You should add OpenAPI generation. So that basically the endpoint /openapi.json is auto-generated.

winrid 1y ago
related - someone should take a stab at actually finishing this :) https://github.com/drogonframework/drogon/issues/988 https://github.com/drogonframework/drogon/issues/988
nesarkvechnep 1y ago
Like most thing in web development, this is backwards. Applications should be generated from the spec, not the other way around.
- yupyupyups 1y ago
  Care to explain the advantage of starting off with the spec rather than with code?
  - nesarkvechnep 1y ago
    Because, you can iterate on the spec with all the stakeholders without ever writing a line of business logic. There are tools which can create a dummy web server from the specification and you can build clients without implementing business logic. I thought the advantages of spec-first development are obvious but I hope I helped.
    - yupyupyups 1y ago
      Thanks. The advantages of having a spec is obvious to me as well. I'm just not sure why building business logic that generates the spec (that generates the client) is a bad idea. That way you still have a single source of truth, and a spec.

slurrpurr 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

canyp 1y ago

Great website, massive rabbit hole I didn't know existed. There's a verified Ada/SPARK OS in there...

Aldipower 1y ago

"After a long break from working on my hobby operating system, I finally got back into it and finished a very important milestone" This is a sign of great engineering. Code gets foreign code after some time of not being in it. If you easily can pick it up again, it is a sign that you've written maintainable and understandable code, also for others.