nghttp2 - HTTP/2.0 C Library

This is an experimental implementation of Hypertext Transfer Protocol version 2.0.

Development Status

We started to implement HTTP-draft-06/2.0 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-http2-06) and the header compression (http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-httpbis-header-compression-03).

The nghttp2 code base was forked from spdylay project.

Features	HTTP-draft-06/2.0
Flow Control	Done
Header Compression	Done
Reprioritization Header Continuation	Done
Server Push	Done
HTTP Upgrade ALPN	Done
NPN	Done

Public Test Server

The following endpoints are available to try out nghttp2 implementation. These endpoints supports HTTP-draft-06/2.0 and the earlier draft versions are not supporeted.

https://106.186.112.116 (TLS + NPN)

NPN offers HTTP-draft-06/2.0, spdy/3, spdy/2 and http/1.1.

Note: certificate is self-signed and a browser will show alert
http://106.186.112.116 (Upgrade + Direct)

Requirements

The following packages are needed to build the library:

pkg-config >= 0.20
zlib >= 1.2.3

To build and run the unit test programs, the following packages are required:

cunit >= 2.1

To build the documentation, you need to install:

sphinx (http://sphinx-doc.org/)

To build and run the application programs (nghttp, nghttpd and nghttpx) in src directory, the following packages are required:

OpenSSL >= 1.0.1
libevent-openssl >= 2.0.8

To enable SPDY protocol in the application program nghttpx, the following packages are required:

spdylay >= 1.0.0

To enable -a option (getting linked assets from the downloaded resouce) in nghttp, the following packages are needed:

libxml2 >= 2.7.7

If you are using Ubuntu 12.04, you need the following packages installed:

autoconf
automake
autotools-dev
libtool
pkg-config
zlib1g-dev
libcunit1-dev
libssl-dev
libxml2-dev
libevent-dev

spdylay is not packaged in Ubuntu, so you need to build it yourself: http://spdylay.sourceforge.net/

Build from git

Building from git is easy, but please be sure that at least autoconf 2.68 is used:

$ autoreconf -i
$ automake
$ autoconf
$ ./configure
$ make

Building documentation

Note

Documentation is still incomplete.

To build documentation, run:

$ make html

The documents will be generated under doc/manual/html/.

The generated documents will not be installed with make install.

The online documentation is available at http://tatsuhiro-t.github.io/nghttp2/

Client, Server and Proxy programs

The src directory contains HTTP/2.0 client, server and proxy programs.

nghttp - client

nghttp is a HTTP/2.0 client. It can connect to the HTTP/2.0 server with prior knowledge, HTTP Upgrade and NPN TLS extension.

It has verbose output mode for framing information. Here is sample output from nghttp client:

$ src/nghttp -vn https://localhost:8443
[  0.001] NPN select next protocol: the remote server offers:
          * HTTP-draft-06/2.0
          * spdy/3
          * spdy/2
          * http/1.1
          NPN selected the protocol: HTTP-draft-06/2.0
[  0.006] send SETTINGS frame <length=16, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (niv=2)
          [MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS(4):100]
          [INITIAL_WINDOW_SIZE(7):65535]
[  0.006] send HEADERS frame <length=58, flags=0x05, stream_id=1>
          ; END_STREAM | END_HEADERS
          ; Open new stream
          :host: localhost:8443
          :method: GET
          :path: /
          :scheme: https
          accept: */*
          accept-encoding: gzip, deflate
          user-agent: nghttp2/0.1.0-DEV
[  0.007] recv SETTINGS frame <length=16, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (niv=2)
          [MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS(4):100]
          [INITIAL_WINDOW_SIZE(7):65535]
[  0.008] recv WINDOW_UPDATE frame <length=4, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (window_size_increment=1000000007)
[  0.008] recv HEADERS frame <length=179, flags=0x04, stream_id=1>
          ; END_HEADERS
          ; First response header
          :status: 200 OK
          accept-ranges: bytes
          content-encoding: gzip
          content-length: 56
          content-type: text/html
          date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:37:17 GMT
          etag: "cf405c-2d-45adabdf282c0"
          last-modified: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:44:03 GMT
          server: Apache/2.2.22 (Debian)
          vary: Accept-Encoding
          via: 1.1 nghttpx
[  0.009] recv DATA frame <length=56, flags=0x00, stream_id=1>
[  0.009] recv DATA frame <length=0, flags=0x01, stream_id=1>
          ; END_STREAM
[  0.009] send GOAWAY frame <length=8, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (last_stream_id=0, error_code=NO_ERROR(0), opaque_data(0)=[])

The HTTP Upgrade is performed like this:

$ src/nghttp -vnu http://localhost:8080
[  0.000] HTTP Upgrade request
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: localhost:8080
Connection: Upgrade, HTTP2-Settings
Upgrade: HTTP-draft-06/2.0
HTTP2-Settings: AAAABAAAAGQAAAAHAAD__w
Accept: */*
User-Agent: nghttp2/0.1.0-DEV


[  0.000] HTTP Upgrade response
HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols
Connection: Upgrade
Upgrade: HTTP/2.0


[  0.000] HTTP Upgrade success
[  0.001] send SETTINGS frame <length=16, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (niv=2)
          [MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS(4):100]
          [INITIAL_WINDOW_SIZE(7):65535]
[  0.001] recv SETTINGS frame <length=16, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (niv=2)
          [MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS(4):100]
          [INITIAL_WINDOW_SIZE(7):65535]
[  0.001] recv WINDOW_UPDATE frame <length=4, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (window_size_increment=1000000007)
[  0.001] recv HEADERS frame <length=198, flags=0x04, stream_id=1>
          ; END_HEADERS
          ; First response header
          :status: 200 OK
          accept-ranges: bytes
          content-length: 45
          content-type: text/html
          date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:39:04 GMT
          etag: "cf405c-2d-45adabdf282c0"
          last-modified: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:44:03 GMT
          server: Apache/2.2.22 (Debian)
          vary: Accept-Encoding
          via: 1.1 nghttpx
          x-pad: avoid browser bug
[  0.001] recv DATA frame <length=45, flags=0x00, stream_id=1>
[  0.001] recv DATA frame <length=0, flags=0x01, stream_id=1>
          ; END_STREAM
[  0.001] send GOAWAY frame <length=8, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (last_stream_id=0, error_code=NO_ERROR(0), opaque_data(0)=[])

nghttpd - server

nghttpd is static web server. It is single threaded and multiplexes connections using non-blocking socket.

By default, it uses SSL/TLS connection. Use --no-tls option to disable it.

nghttpd only accept the HTTP/2.0 connection via NPN or direct HTTP/2.0 connection. No HTTP Upgrade is supported.

Just like nghttp, it has verbose output mode for framing information. Here is sample output from nghttpd server:

$ src/nghttpd --no-tls -v 8080
IPv4: listen on port 8080
IPv6: listen on port 8080
[id=1] [ 14.716] send SETTINGS frame <length=8, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (niv=1)
          [MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS(4):100]
[id=1] [ 14.717] recv SETTINGS frame <length=16, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (niv=2)
          [MAX_CONCURRENT_STREAMS(4):100]
          [INITIAL_WINDOW_SIZE(7):65535]
[id=1] [ 14.717] recv HEADERS frame <length=58, flags=0x05, stream_id=1>
          ; END_STREAM | END_HEADERS
          ; Open new stream
          :host: localhost:8080
          :method: GET
          :path: /
          :scheme: http
          accept: */*
          accept-encoding: gzip, deflate
          user-agent: nghttp2/0.1.0-DEV
[id=1] [ 14.717] send HEADERS frame <length=105, flags=0x04, stream_id=1>
          ; END_HEADERS
          ; First response header
          :status: 404 Not Found
          content-encoding: gzip
          content-type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
          date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 16:41:05 GMT
          server: nghttpd nghttp2/0.1.0-DEV
[id=1] [ 14.717] send DATA frame <length=128, flags=0x00, stream_id=1>
[id=1] [ 14.717] send DATA frame <length=0, flags=0x01, stream_id=1>
          ; END_STREAM
[id=1] [ 14.717] stream_id=1 closed
[id=1] [ 14.717] recv GOAWAY frame <length=8, flags=0x00, stream_id=0>
          (last_stream_id=0, error_code=NO_ERROR(0), opaque_data(0)=[])
[id=1] [ 14.717] closed

nghttpx - proxy

The nghttpx is a multi-threaded reverse proxy for HTTP-draft-06/2.0, SPDY and HTTP/1.1. It has several operation modes:

Mode option	Frontend	Backend	Note
default mode	HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1 (TLS)	HTTP/1.1	Reverse proxy
`--spdy` `--spdy-bridge` `--client`	HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1 (TLS) HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1 (TLS) HTTP/2.0, HTTP/1.1	HTTP/1.1 HTTP/2.0 (TLS) HTTP/2.0 (TLS)	SPDY proxy
`--client-proxy`	HTTP/2.0, HTTP/1.1	HTTP/2.0 (TLS)	Forward proxy

The interesting mode at the moment is the default mode. It works like a reverse proxy and listens HTTP-draft-06/2.0, SPDY and HTTP/1.1 and can be deployed SSL/TLS terminator for existing web server.

The default mode, --spdy and --spdy-bridge modes use SSL/TLS in the frontend connection by default. To disable SSL/TLS, use --frontend-no-tls option. If that option is used, SPDY is disabled in the frontend and incoming HTTP/1.1 connection can be upgraded to HTTP/2.0 through HTTP Upgrade.

The --spdy-bridge, --client and --client-proxy modes use SSL/TLS in the backend connection by deafult. To disable SSL/TLS, use --backend-no-tls option.

The nghttpx supports configuration file. See --conf option and sample configuration file nghttpx.conf.sample.

The nghttpx is ported from shrpx in spdylay project, and it still has SPDY color in option names. They will be fixed as the development goes.

In the default mode, (without any of --spdy, --spdy-bridge, --client-proxy and --client options), nghttpx works as reverse proxy to the backend server:

Client <-- (HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1) --> nghttpx <-- (HTTP/1.1) --> Web Server
                                      [reverse proxy]

With --spdy option, it works as so called secure proxy (aka SPDY proxy):

Client <-- (HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1) --> nghttpx <-- (HTTP/1.1) --> Proxy
                                       [secure proxy]            (e.g., Squid)

The Client in the above is needs to be configured to use nghttpx as secure proxy.

At the time of this writing, Chrome is the only browser which supports secure proxy. The one way to configure Chrome to use secure proxy is create proxy.pac script like this:

function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
    return "HTTPS SERVERADDR:PORT";
}

SERVERADDR and PORT is the hostname/address and port of the machine nghttpx is running. Please note that Chrome requires valid certificate for secure proxy.

Then run chrome with the following arguments:

$ google-chrome --proxy-pac-url=file:///path/to/proxy.pac --use-npn

With --spdy-bridge, it accepts HTTP/2.0, SPDY and HTTP/1.1 connections and communicates with backend in HTTP/2.0:

Client <-- (HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1) --> nghttpx <-- (HTTP/2.0) --> Web or HTTP/2.0 Proxy etc
                                                                     (e.g., nghttpx -s)

With --client-proxy option, it works as forward proxy and expects that the backend is HTTP/2.0 proxy:

Client <-- (HTTP/2.0, HTTP/1.1) --> nghttpx <-- (HTTP/2.0) --> HTTP/2.0 Proxy
                                 [forward proxy]               (e.g., nghttpx -s)

The Client is needs to be configured to use nghttpx as forward proxy. The frontend HTTP/1.1 connection can be upgraded to HTTP/2.0 through HTTP Upgrade. With the above configuration, one can use HTTP/1.1 client to access and test their HTTP/2.0 servers.

With --client option, it works as reverse proxy and expects that the backend is HTTP/2.0 Web server:

Client <-- (HTTP/2.0, HTTP/1.1) --> nghttpx <-- (HTTP/2.0) --> Web Server
                                [reverse proxy]

The frontend HTTP/1.1 connection can be upgraded to HTTP/2.0 through HTTP Upgrade.

For the operation modes which talk to the backend in HTTP/2.0 over SSL/TLS, the backend connections can be tunneled though HTTP proxy. The proxy is specified using --backend-http-proxy-uri option. The following figure illustrates the example of --spdy-bridge and --backend-http-proxy-uri option to talk to the outside HTTP/2.0 proxy through HTTP proxy:

Client <-- (HTTP/2.0, SPDY, HTTP/1.1) --> nghttpx <-- (HTTP/2.0) --

        --===================---> HTTP/2.0 Proxy
          (HTTP proxy tunnel)     (e.g., nghttpx -s)

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 1,050 Commits
doc		doc
examples		examples
fedora		fedora
lib		lib
m4		m4
src		src
tests		tests
.gitignore		.gitignore
AUTHORS		AUTHORS
COPYING		COPYING
ChangeLog		ChangeLog
Makefile.am		Makefile.am
NEWS		NEWS
README		README
README.rst		README.rst
android-config		android-config
android-make		android-make
configure.ac		configure.ac
makerelease.sh		makerelease.sh
nghttpx.conf.sample		nghttpx.conf.sample
proxy.pac.sample		proxy.pac.sample

License

falconindy/nghttp2

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nghttp2 - HTTP/2.0 C Library

Development Status

Public Test Server

Requirements

Build from git

Building documentation

Client, Server and Proxy programs

nghttp - client

nghttpd - server

nghttpx - proxy

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