Bug#890258: ITP: quark -- An extremely small and simple HTTP GET-only web server

[Paride Legovini <pl@ninthfloor.org>]

On 2018-02-12 16:19, Ansgar Burchardt wrote:
> On Mon, 2018-02-12 at 16:05 +0100, Paride Legovini wrote:
>> * Package name    : quark
>>   Version         : soon to be tagged
>>   Upstream Author : Laslo Hunhold <dev@frign.de>
>> * URL             : https://tools.suckless.org/quark/
>> * License         : ISC
>>   Programming Lang: C
>>   Description     : An extremely small and simple HTTP GET-only web
>> server
>>
>> quark is an extremely small and simple HTTP GET-only web server. It
>> only serves static pages on a single host.
> 
> Does this one provide any interesting feature over the various tiny
> httpd servers already available in Debian?
> 
> It certainly doesn't qualify as the smallest one, given the single C
> source file for another implementation is smaller than one of the
> several source files of quark...

Hello Ansgar,

A short answer to your question could be: the extremely tiny http
servers that are already available in Debian are not really meant for
production use, but for quickly sharing files or folders over http. The
other tiny (but not extremely tiny) httpds seem to be more complex than
quark, and I couldn't find one where the development is active.

To answer more precisely, I took a look at all the smallish httpds in
the "httpd" section. Here is a summary of the reasons why I would prefer
quark over them. It's a very superficial comparison, take it with a
grain of salt. Also note that quark doesn't support TLS yet, but patches
are ready for it.

averell: written in Erlang, depends on various Erlang stuff.

micro-httpd: not standalone (depends on inetd), dead project (latest
release dates back to 2005), no TLS support.

mini-httpd: more complex (handles CGI, HEAD/POST, authentication, ...).
Old code, supports SSL but no TLS.

yaws: written in Erlang, depends on various Erlang stuff.

h2o: way more complex, focuses on http/2.

webfs: latest release in 2004, more complex (CGI support), code shows
its age (look at those sprintf()s).

weborf: more complex, not meant to be a production http server (doesn't
support chrooting or dropping privileges, AFAICT).

Best regards,

Paride