Elserv: Yet another HTTP server on Emacsen

[Japanese | English]

Elserv is an HTTP server which runs on Emacs.

Since Emacs does not support server sockets, Elserv runs dedicated server process (ruby script) as a backend process and communicate with it to provide a server feature on Emacs.

What's New

Check here.

Features

Easy to start a web server (Just execute an emacs command).
Dynamic content can be developed using emacs lisp.
Contents can be replaced by simply `eval'uating the lisp code.
HTTP 1.1 GET, HEAD, POST is supported.

Requirements

Emacs (Emacs 20 or XEmacs)
APEL, FLIM
ruby 1.6.3 or later

Download

Newest version is 0.4.0.
elserv-0.4.0.tar.gz

Install

Extract tarball.
Type `make install'. (If you want to install as XEmacs package, type `make install-package')
Debian package is also available.

Usage

Call (require 'elserv), then execute `elserv-start'. it invokes a new server.
It listens on port 8000 (by default setting).
You can register your own content by the function `elserv-publish'.
Access logs are recorded on the buffer "*Log of elserv*".
The command `elserv-stop' or killing the buffer "*elserv*" stops the server process.

Application

demo

es-demo.el is a sample server for demonstration.

wiki

es-wiki.el is an interface for emacs-wiki.

MHC

es-mhc.el is an interface for MHC.

remote

remote.el is a web based remote controller for Emacs.

web-custom

web-custom.el is web version of custom.

Demonstration Video

Here is an Elserv demo video via emacs-w3m.
elserv-demo.tty (requires ttyrec, japanese (euc-jp) terminal)

TODO

Content-Encoding
Content Negotiation
Cookie
SSL?

Mailing List

[email protected] is a mailing list for Elserv development.
To subscribe, goto the elserv-devel mailing list page.

CVS

See CVS document on SourceForge. modulename is "Elserv" (Note that first letter 'E' is upper case).
ViewCVS is here.

Related Work

httpd.el is an HTTP server embedded in the Emacs. It is invoked via tcpserver or inetd.
httpd-serve is an emacs featured web server written in python script (it uses httpd.el).
AllegroServe is a web server which runs on common lisp system.

Evaluation

Evaluation by http_load:

% http_load -parallel 10 -seconds 2 elserv-test
171 fetches, 10 max parallel, 191349 bytes, in 2.00573 seconds
1119 mean bytes/connection
85.2557 fetches/sec, 95401.1 bytes/sec
msecs/connect: 0.203205 mean, 1.205 max, 0.082 min
msecs/first-response: 77.3926 mean, 133.693 max, 27.229 min

Access from localhost to localhost. Target page is the top page of `elserv-demo'.
Environment: Celeron 400MHz, FreeBSD 3.5.1, Emacs 21.

Yuuichi Teranishi<[email protected]>