Set up G-WAN web server

to serve static website

What is G-WAN web server?

From G-WAN website,

G-WAN runs C, C# or Java with less CPU and
less RAM while handling more requests than other
servers. Other languages (Go, PHP, Python, Ruby, JS...)
benefit from G-WAN's multicore architecture.

G-WAN can be used for serving both static and dynamic contents.

Languages supported for dynamic content generation.

• C
• C++
• C#
• Go
• Java
• Javascript
• Lua
• Objective-C
• Perl
• PHP
• Python
• Ruby
• Scala

This post explains how to set up static website.

Set up

Just download and unpack the server.

wget "http://gwan.com/archives/gwan_linux64-bit.tar.bz2"
tar -xjf gwan_linux64-bit.tar.bz2
cd gwan_linux64-bit
./gwan -h

Following output is shown,

  _________________________________________________________________
  |                                                               |
  | G-WAN Web App. Server v7.12.6   64-bit (Feb  8 2016 16:33:28) |
  |_______________________________________________________________|
  |                                                               |
  | Usage: gwan [-b -d -g -t -w | -k | -r | -v] [argument]        |
  |        (grouped options like '-bd' are ignored, use '-b -d')  |
  |_______________________________________________________________|
  |                                                               |
  |   -b | use the TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT TCP option                    |
  |      | (not for frontends: it disables the DoS shield)        |
  |                                                               |
  |   -d | daemon mode (default is '-d:www-data:www-data',        |
  |      | use -d:group:user or just -d:account if user=group)    |
  |                                                               |
  |   -g | do not limit worker threads to physical CPU Cores      |
  |      | (may be needed to bypass a faulty CPU detection but    |
  |      | don't set more workers than you have physical Cores)   |
  |                                                               |
  |   -k | (gracefully) kill local gwan processes using the       |
  |      | *.pid files found in the ./gwan directory              |
  |                                                               |
  |   -r | run the specified C script and exit (-r hello.c)       |
  |      | (general-purpose source code here, not servlets)       |
  |                                                               |
  |   -t | store client requests in the 'gwan/trace' file         |
  |                                                               |
  |   -v | show the version number and build date, and exit       |
  |                                                               |
  |   -w | define the number of worker threads (ie: -g -w 1)      |
  |_______________________________________________________________|

G-WAN can listen on 3 local IP addresses:
 127.0.0.1 192.168.42.101 172.17.42.1

List of IPs which can be listened by G-WAN is shown above.

Starting and stopping the server

# Start the server in the background
$ ./gwan &

# Stop the server
$ ./gwan -k

Directory Layout for static website

For serving static website following folder structure is needed. All, other folders comes with the downloaded archive are not required for serving static content.

• gwan_linux64-bit
  • 127.0.0.1:8080 -> 1
    • #127.0.0.1 -> 2
      • gzip -> 3
        • index.html
      • logs -> 4
        • access_2016-02-22.log
        • access.log
        • error_2016-02-22.log
        • error.log
      • www -> 5
        • index.html
  • gwan -> 6
  • logs -> 7
    • gwan_2016-02-22.log
    • gwan.log
  • trace -> 8

Numbers 1-8 marked above is explained as follows.

1. 127.0.0.1:8080 IP Address and Port to which this G-WAN web server will listen.
2. #127.0.0.1 Prefix '#' used for "root" HOST (the default host) and prefix '$' for "virtual" HOSTS (identified by the "Host: xxx" HTTP header).
3. gzip content is automatically produced by the G-WAN to serve compressed files.
4. logs folder contains access and error logs.
5. Place static html, js, css and other static files in www folder.
   This is the root directory for the web server.
6. Executable file gwan contains the server code.
7. Server log files are stored in logs folder.
8. trace file contains the server start and stop timings.

Zero configuration files.

• Yep! you read it right, G WAN uses directory structure to set up virtual hosts.
• You can override the defaults, by editing the init.c_ and main.c_ samples given in the tar.
• Virtual hosts can be added by adding folders into top level 127.0.0.1:8080.
  • 127.0.0.1:8080
    • #127.0.0.1
    • $hostname1
      • www
• We can access contents of the hostname1 by accessing the url http://hostname1:8080.
• Don't create the logs folder inside virtual host folder $hostname1 to avoid creating logs.

Good things about G-WAN

• No need to install any package/dependency for setting up the server.
• Easy to configure and deploy in linux servers.
• Since, gwan file is only 229KB, can be embedded and checked into the repository (Say 'git')
• Gives comparable performance to nginx or more. Depends on the content served.

Low market share

• G-WAN is relatively younger one in the web server market.
• Market share is much lower compared to Nginx or oldie Apache web server
• So, the availability of online resources apart from G-WAN website.

Notes

I had tested G-WAN v7.12.6 in Ubuntu 14.04 and Cent OS 7.1.
Seems to be working well without any issues.