[2021] UIC - CS 361: Systems Programming - Homework5 Web based Chat Server
Homework 5 a web based chat server#
Assignment checkout link.In this assignment, you will be finishing a super basic, but totally functional, web-based chat program. The main challenge for students will be to digest the code as given, and write the logic that makes the stateful protocol run. Watch this video to see the solution code in action.
In this assignment, you will be finishing a super basic, but totally functional, web-based chat program. The main challenge for students will be to digest the code as given, and write the logic that makes the stateful protocol run. Watch this video to see the solution code in action.
HTTP routes#
The server itself functions as a standard HTTP server. Where the previous homework required you to serve files and run external programs based on each request, this server functions more as a web application in that the server will be performing actions itself based on requests: sometimes it will send a file, sometimes it will send chat messages, sometimes it will receive chat messages and then send them to all listening clients.
In a modern web application, rather than simply serving files, these different actions are called routes. The routes in our application are:
GET /index.html just sends the static index file.GET /listen set up a "server-sent events" connection, where newly received messages are sent.POST /speak the web browser makes this request when a user wants to send a chat message, and the received message is broadcast to all listening clients.
The server itself functions as a standard HTTP server. Where the previous homework required you to serve files and run external programs based on each request, this server functions more as a web application in that the server will be performing actions itself based on requests: sometimes it will send a file, sometimes it will send chat messages, sometimes it will receive chat messages and then send them to all listening clients.
In a modern web application, rather than simply serving files, these different actions are called routes. The routes in our application are:
GET /index.htmljust sends the static index file.GET /listenset up a "server-sent events" connection, where newly received messages are sent.POST /speakthe web browser makes this request when a user wants to send a chat message, and the received message is broadcast to all listening clients.
Server-sent events#
Generally, "asynchronous" communication between an http server and an http client is somewhat complicated. Thankfully, server-sent events make this simple: by sending a response with mime type text/event-stream, the browser knows to continually read bytes from that socket and interpret them as empty-line-delimited individual messages, similar to how HTTP headers and HTTP bodies are separated.
Another nice aspect of how the browser works is that it can make multiple requests simultaneously through different file descriptors. So once it receives index.html, it can then make one long-lived HTTP connection to the /listen endpoint, waiting for new messages to appear, and then make separate connections and send messages to the /speak endpoint when the client wants to send a message.
Generally, "asynchronous" communication between an http server and an http client is somewhat complicated. Thankfully, server-sent events make this simple: by sending a response with mime type text/event-stream, the browser knows to continually read bytes from that socket and interpret them as empty-line-delimited individual messages, similar to how HTTP headers and HTTP bodies are separated.
Another nice aspect of how the browser works is that it can make multiple requests simultaneously through different file descriptors. So once it receives index.html, it can then make one long-lived HTTP connection to the /listen endpoint, waiting for new messages to appear, and then make separate connections and send messages to the /speak endpoint when the client wants to send a message.
Skeleton code#
The skeleton code for this assignment is based off of the event-driven, single-threaded echo server in the book. All of the code for receiving multiple connections is still in there. The TODOs for this assignment happen when a new message comes in on an individual socket: you need to decide on what to do next in order to move the protocol forward. Each time that bytes are received, they should be accumulated into requestbuf for that specific client.
The skeleton code for this assignment is based off of the event-driven, single-threaded echo server in the book. All of the code for receiving multiple connections is still in there. The TODOs for this assignment happen when a new message comes in on an individual socket: you need to decide on what to do next in order to move the protocol forward. Each time that bytes are received, they should be accumulated into requestbuf for that specific client.
My suggested strategy#
My TODO solutions are 4 and 29 lines long respectively - the vast majority of the difficulty in this assignment is understanding what you need to do, understanding what the skeleton code does, and then using the helper functions already written to add the correct code. The skeleton code itself is based off of the select-based echo server that's presented in the book. I would recommend reading that section of the book, paying extra attention to how the select server was written, and then move forward from there. The main thing that makes this more complicated is that the echo server doesn't require any statefulness (do different on a given connection based on what information you've received previously), and it doesn't require any interaction between different socket connections.
My TODO solutions are 4 and 29 lines long respectively - the vast majority of the difficulty in this assignment is understanding what you need to do, understanding what the skeleton code does, and then using the helper functions already written to add the correct code. The skeleton code itself is based off of the select-based echo server that's presented in the book. I would recommend reading that section of the book, paying extra attention to how the select server was written, and then move forward from there. The main thing that makes this more complicated is that the echo server doesn't require any statefulness (do different on a given connection based on what information you've received previously), and it doesn't require any interaction between different socket connections.
