HTTP server with minimal dependencies
Most of web development written in C# is done with ASP.NET, which is too high-level for my taste. Also, many of the Web/HTTP classes from .NET / ASP.NET don't play well with Mono / Linux.
So I decided to write something that would allow me to code websites in C# with minimal dependencies and easy to use.
PM> Install-Package LunarServer
Since this is a .NET standard package, to use with .NET framework projects please set the target to .NET Framework 4.5 or higher, otherwise Nuget will give you installation errors.
- .NET Core
- .NET Framework 3.5 and above
- Mono & Xamarin
- UWP
- HTTP methods (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE)
- Cookies / Sessions
- File caching / ETAG / GZip compression
- Forms / File uploads
- Websockets
Import the package:
using LunarLabs.WebServer.Core;
using LunarLabs.WebServer.HTTP;Instantiate the necessary classes:
// either parse the settings from the program args or initialize them manually
var settings = ServerSettings.Parse(args);
var server = new HTTPServer(settings, ConsoleLogger.Write);Add some routes to the site.
server.Get("/", (request) =>
{
return HTTPResponse.FromString("Hello world!");
});
Finally add code to start the server.
server.Run();
bool running = true;
Console.CancelKeyPress += delegate {
server.Stop();
running = false;
};
while (running) {
Thread.Sleep(500);
}You can now open "http://localhost" in your browser and see "Hello World! appear.
Here's how to support POST requests (from HTML forms, etc)
server.Post("/myform", (request) =>
{
var username = request.args["username"];
var password = request.args["password"];
if (password == "hello") {
return HTTPResponse.FromString("Login ok!");
}
else {
return HTTPResponse.FromString("Invalid login details!");
}
}); Here's how to do dynamic routes (aka pretty URLs)
server.Get("/user/{id}", (request) =>
{
var user_id = request.args["id"];
return HTTPResponse.FromString($"Hello user with ID = {user_id}!");
}); Here is how you redirect the user browser to another URL.
server.Get("/secret", (request) =>
{
return HTTPResponse.Redirect("/login");
}); Here is how you handle websockets.
server.WebSocket("/chat", (socket) =>
{
while (socket.IsOpen)
{
var msg = socket.Receive();
if (msg.CloseStatus == WebSocketCloseStatus.None)
{
var str = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(msg.Bytes);
Console.WriteLine(str);
socket.Send("Thanks man!");
}
}
});There's also builtin support for Mustache templates. First create a folder (eg: "views") with your template files.
<h3>Hello, {{username}}!</h3>Then instantiate a template engine and add the necessary routes.
var templateEngine = new TemplateEngine(server, "views");
server.Get("/hello", (request) =>
{
var context = new Dictionary<string, object>();
context["username"] = "Admin";
return templateEngine.Render(context, "main");
});Q: How to disable access to file system / static content?
A: Currently the way to do this is to set the server settings Path to null.
// either parse the settings from the program args or initialize them manually
var settings = ServerSettings.Parse(args);
settings.Path = null;
var server = new HTTPServer(settings, ConsoleLogger.Write);Let me know if you find bugs or if you have suggestions to improve the project.
And maybe follow me @onihunters :)