Simple HTTP server in Java using only Java SE API

It's possible to create an httpserver that provides basic support for J2EE servlets with just the JDK and the servlet api in a just a few lines of code.

I've found this very useful for unit testing servlets, as it starts much faster than other lightweight containers (we use jetty for production).

Most very lightweight httpservers do not provide support for servlets, but we need them, so I thought I'd share.

The below example provides basic servlet support, or throws and UnsupportedOperationException for stuff not yet implemented. It uses the com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer for basic http support.

import java.io.*;
import java.lang.reflect.*;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
import java.util.*;

import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpExchange;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpHandler;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer;

@SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
public class VerySimpleServletHttpServer {
    HttpServer server;
    private String contextPath;
    private HttpHandler httpHandler;

    public VerySimpleServletHttpServer(String contextPath, HttpServlet servlet) {
        this.contextPath = contextPath;
        httpHandler = new HttpHandlerWithServletSupport(servlet);
    }

    public void start(int port) throws IOException {
        InetSocketAddress inetSocketAddress = new InetSocketAddress(port);
        server = HttpServer.create(inetSocketAddress, 0);
        server.createContext(contextPath, httpHandler);
        server.setExecutor(null);
        server.start();
    }

    public void stop(int secondsDelay) {
        server.stop(secondsDelay);
    }

    public int getServerPort() {
        return server.getAddress().getPort();
    }

}

final class HttpHandlerWithServletSupport implements HttpHandler {

    private HttpServlet servlet;

    private final class RequestWrapper extends HttpServletRequestWrapper {
        private final HttpExchange ex;
        private final Map<String, String[]> postData;
        private final ServletInputStream is;
        private final Map<String, Object> attributes = new HashMap<>();

        private RequestWrapper(HttpServletRequest request, HttpExchange ex, Map<String, String[]> postData, ServletInputStream is) {
            super(request);
            this.ex = ex;
            this.postData = postData;
            this.is = is;
        }

        @Override
        public String getHeader(String name) {
            return ex.getRequestHeaders().getFirst(name);
        }

        @Override
        public Enumeration<String> getHeaders(String name) {
            return new Vector<String>(ex.getRequestHeaders().get(name)).elements();
        }

        @Override
        public Enumeration<String> getHeaderNames() {
            return new Vector<String>(ex.getRequestHeaders().keySet()).elements();
        }

        @Override
        public Object getAttribute(String name) {
            return attributes.get(name);
        }

        @Override
        public void setAttribute(String name, Object o) {
            this.attributes.put(name, o);
        }

        @Override
        public Enumeration<String> getAttributeNames() {
            return new Vector<String>(attributes.keySet()).elements();
        }

        @Override
        public String getMethod() {
            return ex.getRequestMethod();
        }

        @Override
        public ServletInputStream getInputStream() throws IOException {
            return is;
        }

        @Override
        public BufferedReader getReader() throws IOException {
            return new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(getInputStream()));
        }

        @Override
        public String getPathInfo() {
            return ex.getRequestURI().getPath();
        }

        @Override
        public String getParameter(String name) {
            String[] arr = postData.get(name);
            return arr != null ? (arr.length > 1 ? Arrays.toString(arr) : arr[0]) : null;
        }

        @Override
        public Map<String, String[]> getParameterMap() {
            return postData;
        }

        @Override
        public Enumeration<String> getParameterNames() {
            return new Vector<String>(postData.keySet()).elements();
        }
    }

    private final class ResponseWrapper extends HttpServletResponseWrapper {
        final ByteArrayOutputStream outputStream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        final ServletOutputStream servletOutputStream = new ServletOutputStream() {

            @Override
            public void write(int b) throws IOException {
                outputStream.write(b);
            }
        };

        private final HttpExchange ex;
        private final PrintWriter printWriter;
        private int status = HttpServletResponse.SC_OK;

        private ResponseWrapper(HttpServletResponse response, HttpExchange ex) {
            super(response);
            this.ex = ex;
            printWriter = new PrintWriter(servletOutputStream);
        }

        @Override
        public void setContentType(String type) {
            ex.getResponseHeaders().add("Content-Type", type);
        }

        @Override
        public void setHeader(String name, String value) {
            ex.getResponseHeaders().add(name, value);
        }

        @Override
        public javax.servlet.ServletOutputStream getOutputStream() throws IOException {
            return servletOutputStream;
        }

        @Override
        public void setContentLength(int len) {
            ex.getResponseHeaders().add("Content-Length", len + "");
        }

        @Override
        public void setStatus(int status) {
            this.status = status;
        }

        @Override
        public void sendError(int sc, String msg) throws IOException {
            this.status = sc;
            if (msg != null) {
                printWriter.write(msg);
            }
        }

        @Override
        public void sendError(int sc) throws IOException {
            sendError(sc, null);
        }

        @Override
        public PrintWriter getWriter() throws IOException {
            return printWriter;
        }

        public void complete() throws IOException {
            try {
                printWriter.flush();
                ex.sendResponseHeaders(status, outputStream.size());
                if (outputStream.size() > 0) {
                    ex.getResponseBody().write(outputStream.toByteArray());
                }
                ex.getResponseBody().flush();
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            } finally {
                ex.close();
            }
        }
    }

    public HttpHandlerWithServletSupport(HttpServlet servlet) {
        this.servlet = servlet;
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
    @Override
    public void handle(final HttpExchange ex) throws IOException {
        byte[] inBytes = getBytes(ex.getRequestBody());
        ex.getRequestBody().close();
        final ByteArrayInputStream newInput = new ByteArrayInputStream(inBytes);
        final ServletInputStream is = new ServletInputStream() {

            @Override
            public int read() throws IOException {
                return newInput.read();
            }
        };

        Map<String, String[]> parsePostData = new HashMap<>();

        try {
            parsePostData.putAll(HttpUtils.parseQueryString(ex.getRequestURI().getQuery()));

            // check if any postdata to parse
            parsePostData.putAll(HttpUtils.parsePostData(inBytes.length, is));
        } catch (IllegalArgumentException e) {
            // no postData - just reset inputstream
            newInput.reset();
        }
        final Map<String, String[]> postData = parsePostData;

        RequestWrapper req = new RequestWrapper(createUnimplementAdapter(HttpServletRequest.class), ex, postData, is);

        ResponseWrapper resp = new ResponseWrapper(createUnimplementAdapter(HttpServletResponse.class), ex);

        try {
            servlet.service(req, resp);
            resp.complete();
        } catch (ServletException e) {
            throw new IOException(e);
        }
    }

    private static byte[] getBytes(InputStream in) throws IOException {
        ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
        while (true) {
            int r = in.read(buffer);
            if (r == -1)
                break;
            out.write(buffer, 0, r);
        }
        return out.toByteArray();
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    private static <T> T createUnimplementAdapter(Class<T> httpServletApi) {
        class UnimplementedHandler implements InvocationHandler {
            @Override
            public Object invoke(Object proxy, Method method, Object[] args) throws Throwable {
                throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not implemented: " + method + ", args=" + Arrays.toString(args));
            }
        }

        return (T) Proxy.newProxyInstance(UnimplementedHandler.class.getClassLoader(),
                new Class<?>[] { httpServletApi },
                new UnimplementedHandler());
    }
}

All the above answers details about Single main threaded Request Handler.

setting:

 server.setExecutor(java.util.concurrent.Executors.newCachedThreadPool());

Allows multiple request serving via multiple threads using executor service.

So the end code will be something like below:

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.net.InetSocketAddress;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpExchange;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpHandler;
import com.sun.net.httpserver.HttpServer;
public class App {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        HttpServer server = HttpServer.create(new InetSocketAddress(8000), 0);
        server.createContext("/test", new MyHandler());
        //Thread control is given to executor service.
        server.setExecutor(java.util.concurrent.Executors.newCachedThreadPool());
        server.start();
    }
    static class MyHandler implements HttpHandler {
        @Override
        public void handle(HttpExchange t) throws IOException {
            String response = "This is the response";
            long threadId = Thread.currentThread().getId();
            System.out.println("I am thread " + threadId );
            response = response + "Thread Id = "+threadId;
            t.sendResponseHeaders(200, response.length());
            OutputStream os = t.getResponseBody();
            os.write(response.getBytes());
            os.close();
        }
    }
}

Try this https://github.com/devashish234073/Java-Socket-Http-Server/blob/master/README.md

This API has creates an HTTP server using sockets.

1. It gets a request from the browser as text
2. Parses it to retrieve URL info, method, attributes, etc.
3. Creates dynamic response using the URL mapping defined
4. Sends the response to the browser.

For example the here's how the constructor in the Response.java class converts a raw response into an http response:

public Response(String resp){
    Date date = new Date();
    String start = "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n";
    String header = "Date: "+date.toString()+"\r\n";
    header+= "Content-Type: text/html\r\n";
    header+= "Content-length: "+resp.length()+"\r\n";
    header+="\r\n";
    this.resp=start+header+resp;
}

An example of a very basic HTTP server on TCP sockets level:

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.InetAddress;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;

public class NaiveHttpServer {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    String hostname = InetAddress.getLocalHost().getHostName();
    ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(8089);
    while (true) {
      Socket clientSocket = serverSocket.accept();
      PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
      BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(clientSocket.getInputStream()));
      String s = in.readLine();
      System.out.println(s);
      while ("\r\n".equals(in.readLine())); 
      if ("GET /hostname HTTP/1.1".equals(s)) {
        out.println("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
        out.println("Connection: close");
        out.println("Content-Type: text/plain");
        out.println("Content-Length:" + hostname.length());
        out.println();
        out.println(hostname);
      } else {
        out.println("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found");
        out.println("Connection: close");
        out.println();    
      }
      out.flush();
    }
  }
}

The example serves the hostname of the computer.

Starting in Java 18, you can create simple web servers with the Java standard library:

class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        var port = 8000;
        var rootDirectory = Path.of("C:/Users/Mahozad/Desktop/");
        var outputLevel = OutputLevel.VERBOSE;
        var server = SimpleFileServer.createFileServer(
                new InetSocketAddress(port),
                rootDirectory,
                outputLevel
        );
        server.start();
    }
}

This will, by default, show a directory listing of the root directory you specified. You can place an index.html file (and other assets like CSS and JS files) in that directory to show them instead.

Example (I put these in Desktop which was specified as my directory root above):

index.html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>Java 18 Simple Web Server</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
  <style>h1 { color: blue; }</style>
  <script src="scripts.js" defer>
    let element = document.getElementsByTagName("h1")[0];
    element.style.fontSize = "48px";
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>I'm <i>index.html</i> in the root directory.</h1>
</body>
</html>

Sidenote

For Java standard library HTTP client, see this post.

The old com.sun.net.httpserver is again a public and accepted API, since Java 11. You can get it as HttpServer class, available as part of jdk.httpserver module. See https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/jdk.httpserver/com/sun/net/httpserver/HttpServer.html

This class implements a simple HTTP server. A HttpServer is bound to an IP address and port number and listens for incoming TCP connections from clients on this address. The sub-class HttpsServer implements a server which handles HTTPS requests.

So, apart from its limitations, there is no reason to avoid its use anymore.

I use it to publish a control interface in server applications. Reading the User-agent header from a client request I even respond in text/plain to CLI tools like curl or in more elegant HTML way to any other browser.

Cool and easy.

Here is my simple webserver, used in JMeter for testing webhooks (that's why it will close and end itself after request is received).

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;

public class HttpServer {

    private static int extractContentLength(StringBuilder sb) {
        int length = 0;
        String[] lines = sb.toString().split("\\n");
        for (int i = 0; i < lines.length; i++) {
            String s = lines[i];
            if (s.toLowerCase().startsWith("Content-Length:".toLowerCase()) && i <= lines.length - 2) {
                String slength = s.substring(s.indexOf(":") + 1, s.length()).trim();
                length = Integer.parseInt(slength);
                System.out.println("Length = " + length);
                return length;
            }
        }
        return 0;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        
        
        int port = Integer.parseInt(args[0]);
        System.out.println("starting HTTP Server on port " + port);

        StringBuilder outputString = new StringBuilder(1000);

        ServerSocket serverSocket = new ServerSocket(port);
        serverSocket.setSoTimeout(3 * 60 * 1000); // 3 minutes timeout
        while (true) {

            outputString.setLength(0); // reset buff

            Socket clientSocket = serverSocket.accept(); // blocking
            PrintWriter out = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);

            try {

                boolean isBodyRead = false;
                int dataBuffer;
                while ((dataBuffer = clientSocket.getInputStream().read()) != -1) {

                    if (dataBuffer == 13) { // CR
                        if (clientSocket.getInputStream().read() == 10) { // LF
                            outputString.append("\n");
                        }
                    } else {
                        outputString.append((char) dataBuffer);
                    }
                    
                    // do we have Content length
                    int len = extractContentLength(outputString);
                    if (len > 0) {
                        int actualLength = len - 1; // we need to substract \r\n
                        for (int i = 0; i < actualLength; i++) {
                            int body = clientSocket.getInputStream().read();
                            outputString.append((char) body);
                        }
                        isBodyRead = true;
                        break;
                    }

                } // end of reading while

                if (isBodyRead) {
                    // response headers
                    out.println("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
                    out.println("Connection: close");
                    out.println(); // must have empty line for HTTP
                    
                    out.flush(); 
                    out.close(); // close clients connection
                }

            } catch (IOException ioEx) {
                System.out.println(ioEx.getMessage());
            }

            System.out.println(outputString.toString());
            break; // stop server - break while true
            
        } // end of outer while true
        
        serverSocket.close();

    } // end of method

}

You can test it like this:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Connection: close" -d '{"name": "gustinmi", "email": "gustinmi at google dot com "}' -v http://localhost:8081/