No kidding, I wrote this HTTP server in Bourne Shell. It supports most of HTTP 1.0 headers, Keep-alive requests, directory listing and PHP scripts. By its nature, this piece of software is not secure (it is fun though) and isn't intended for production purposes : <insert the usual NO WARRANTY boilerplate bullshit here>.

I tested it with PHPMyAdmin which I consider to be heavy PHP software and it works pretty well. It is not well commented, really I just wrote it for fun, learning BASH and HTTP protocol.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150

#!/bin/bash
 
# Written by Alexis Bezverkhyy <alexis@grapsus.net> in 2008
# This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.
# For more information, please refer to <http://unlicense.org/>
 
# This script should be run via inetd, first parameter is WWW root path
 
# Uncomment for debugging
#exec 2>/tmp/log ; set -x
 
NUM="$RANDOM"
DOCUMENT_ROOT="$1"
KEEP_ALIVE="keep-alive"
 
while [ "$KEEP_ALIVE" == "keep-alive" ] ; do
KEEP_ALIVE="close"
 
for i in seq 1 5; do
  read -t 5 line
  if [ -n "$line" ] ; then break; fi
done
 
if grep -sqv 'HTTP' <<< "$line" ; then exit ; fi
#echo `date`" BEGIN $line" >> /tmp/"$NUM"-log
 
REQUEST_METHOD=`cut -d ' ' -f 1 <<< "$line"`
REQUEST_URI=`cut -d ' ' -f 2 <<< "$line" | sed 's/%20/ /'`
SCRIPT_NAME=`cut -d '?' -f 1 <<< "$REQUEST_URI"`
SCRIPT_FILENAME=`sed -e 's#//#/#' -e 's#/$##' <<< "$DOCUMENT_ROOT$SCRIPT_NAME"`
QUERY_STRING=''
if grep -sq '?' <<< "$REQUEST_URI" ; then
  QUERY_STRING=`cut -d '?' -f 2 <<< "$REQUEST_URI"`
fi
 
while read -t 1 line ; do
  line=`strings <<< "$line"`
  if grep -sqi '^Content-length' <<< "$line" ; then
    CONTENT_LENGTH=`cut -d ' ' -f 2 <<< "$line"`
  elif grep -sqi '^Content-type' <<< "$line" ; then
    CONTENT_TYPE=`cut -d ' ' -f 2 <<< "$line"`
  elif grep -sqi '^Connection' <<< "$line" ; then
    KEEP_ALIVE=`cut -d ' ' -f 2 <<< "$line"`
  elif grep -sqi '^Cookie' <<< "$line" ; then
    HTTP_COOKIE=`sed 's/Cookie:[ ]*//i' <<< "$line"`
  fi
  if [ -z "$line" -a "$REQUEST_METHOD" == "POST" -a -n "$CONTENT_LENGTH" ] ; then
    read -n "$CONTENT_LENGTH" line
    echo "$line" > /tmp/"$NUM"-post
    break
  elif [ -z "$line" ] ; then
    break
  fi
done
 
# some security
if grep -sq '\.\.' <<< "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" || ( namei "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" | grep -sq '\->') ; 
then
  SCRIPT_FILENAME='./'  
fi
 
if [ -d "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" ] ; then
  echo -en 'HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\nContent-type: text/html\r\n\r\n'
  dir=`sed 's#'"$DOCUMENT_ROOT"'##' <<< "$SCRIPT_FILENAME"`
  if [ -z "$dir" ] ; then
    dir='/' ; parent='/'
  else
    parent=`sed 's#/[^/]\+$##' <<< "$dir"`
    if [ -z "$parent" ] ; then parent='/' ; fi
  fi
  echo "<html><head><title>Index of $dir</title></head>
  <body><h3>Index of $dir</h3>
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td><b>Name</b></td>
      <td><b>Last modified</b></td>
      <td><b>Size</b></td>
    </tr>
    <tr><td colspan=\"3\">[D] <a href=\"$parent\">..</a></td></tr>"
  for item in "$SCRIPT_FILENAME"/* ; do
    if [ "$item" == "$SCRIPT_FILENAME"'/*' ] ; then break ; fi
    name=`basename "$item"`
    link=`sed 's#'"$DOCUMENT_ROOT"'##' <<< "$item"`
    stat=`ls -lhd --time-style='+%d-%m-%y#%H:%m' "$item"`
    mtime=`cut -d ' ' -f 6 <<< "$stat" | sed 's/#/ /'`
    size=`cut -d ' ' -f 5 <<< "$stat"`
    echo "<tr><td>"
    if [ -L "$item" ] ; then
      echo "[S] $name<br/>"
    elif [ -d "$item" ] ; then
      echo '[D] <a href="'"$link"'">'"$name"'</a><br/>'
    else
      echo '[F] <a href="'"$link"'">'"$name"'</a><br/>'
    fi
    echo "</td><td>$mtime</td><td>$size</td></tr>"
  done
  echo "</table></body></html>"
elif [ -f "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" ] ; then
  mime='text/html'
  if grep -Esqv '\.(php|htm|html)$' <<< "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" ; then
    mime=`file -b --mime-type $SCRIPT_FILENAME`
  fi
  if grep -sq '\.php$' <<< "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" ; then
    for var in `env | cut -d '=' -f 1` ; do
      if [ "$var" != "PATH" -a "$var" != "PWD" -a "$var" != "LANG" -a "$var" != "SHLVL" ] ; then
        export -n "$var"
      fi
    done
    export REQUEST_URI REQUEST_METHOD QUERY_STRING DOCUMENT_ROOT SCRIPT_FILENAME \
    SCRIPT_NAME CONTENT_LENGTH CONTENT_TYPE GATEWAY_INTERFACE='CGI/1.1' \
    HTTP_HOST=`hostname -i` HTTP_COOKIE REDIRECT_STATUS=1
    if [ "$REQUEST_METHOD" == "GET" ] ; then
      php-cgi $SCRIPT_FILENAME \
      `tr '&' ' ' <<< "$QUERY_STRING"` > /tmp/"$NUM"-php
    else
      php-cgi $SCRIPT_FILENAME \
      `tr '&' ' ' <<< "$QUERY_STRING"` > /tmp/"$NUM"-php < /tmp/"$NUM"-post
    fi
    HTTP_STATUS=`grep -i '^Status: .*$' /tmp/"$NUM"-php | cut -d ' ' -f 2`
    if [ -z "$HTTP_STATUS" ] ; then
      HTTP_STATUS='200'
    fi
    OUT="head"
    cat /tmp/"$NUM"-php | while read ; do
      if [ "$OUT" = 'head' ] ; then
        REPLY=$(strings <<< "$REPLY")
        if [ -z "$REPLY" ] ; then
          OUT='body'
          continue
        fi
      fi
      echo "$REPLY" >> /tmp/"$NUM"-php-"$OUT"
    done
    echo -en "HTTP/1.0 $HTTP_STATUS OK\r\nContent-type: $mime\r\nContent-length:"\
    `ls -l /tmp/"$NUM"-php-body | cut -d ' ' -f 5`"\r\nConnection: $KEEP_ALIVE\r\n"
    cat /tmp/"$NUM"-php-head
    echo -en "\r\n"
    cat /tmp/"$NUM"-php-body
  else
    echo -en "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\nContent-type: $mime\r\nContent-length: "\
    `ls -l "$SCRIPT_FILENAME" | cut -d ' ' -f 5`"\r\nConnection: $KEEP_ALIVE\r\n\r\n"
    cat "$SCRIPT_FILENAME"
  fi
  rm -f /tmp/"$NUM"-php /tmp/"$NUM"-php-body /tmp/"$NUM"-php-head /tmp/"$NUM"-post 
  # /tmp/"$NUM"-log
else
  echo -en 'HTTP/1.0 404 NOT FOUND\n\rContent-type: text/plain\r\n\r\n404 File not found'
fi
#echo `date`" END" >> /tmp/"$NUM"-log
done

Here's the inetd configuration I use to run it :

8080	stream	tcp	nowait	grapsus	/usr/sbin/tcpd /home/grapsus/bin/http.sh /home/grapsus/www

I know BASH supports sockets, but this support is disabled in most Unix distributions (especially on Debian).

Let me know what you think about it or the improvements you made.