WEB server toolkit.

WEBrick is an HTTP server toolkit that can be configured as an HTTPS server, a proxy server, and a virtual-host server. WEBrick features complete logging of both server operations and HTTP access. WEBrick supports both basic and digest authentication in addition to algorithms not in RFC 2617.

A WEBrick server can be composed of multiple WEBrick servers or servlets to provide differing behavior on a per-host or per-path basis. WEBrick includes servlets for handling CGI scripts, ERB pages, Ruby blocks and directory listings.

WEBrick also includes tools for daemonizing a process and starting a process at a higher privilege level and dropping permissions.

Starting an HTTP server

To create a new WEBrick::HTTPServer that will listen to connections on port 8000 and serve documents from the current user’s public_html folder:

require 'webrick'

root = File.expand_path '~/public_html'
server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new :Port => 8000, :DocumentRoot => root

To run the server you will need to provide a suitable shutdown hook as starting the server blocks the current thread:

trap 'INT' do server.shutdown end

server.start

Custom Behavior

The easiest way to have a server perform custom operations is through WEBrick::HTTPServer#mount_proc. The block given will be called with a WEBrick::HTTPRequest with request info and a WEBrick::HTTPResponse which must be filled in appropriately:

server.mount_proc '/' do |req, res|
  res.body = 'Hello, world!'
end

Remember that server.mount_proc must precede server.start.

Servlets

Advanced custom behavior can be obtained through mounting a subclass of WEBrick::HTTPServlet::AbstractServlet. Servlets provide more modularity when writing an HTTP server than mount_proc allows. Here is a simple servlet:

class Simple < WEBrick::HTTPServlet::AbstractServlet
  def do_GET request, response
    status, content_type, body = do_stuff_with request

    response.status = 200
    response['Content-Type'] = 'text/plain'
    response.body = 'Hello, World!'
  end
end

To initialize the servlet you mount it on the server:

server.mount '/simple', Simple

See WEBrick::HTTPServlet::AbstractServlet for more details.

Virtual Hosts

A server can act as a virtual host for multiple host names. After creating the listening host, additional hosts that do not listen can be created and attached as virtual hosts:

server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new # ...

vhost = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new :ServerName => 'vhost.example',
                                :DoNotListen => true, # ...
vhost.mount '/', ...

server.virtual_host vhost

If no :DocumentRoot is provided and no servlets or procs are mounted on the main server it will return 404 for all URLs.

HTTPS

To create an HTTPS server you only need to enable SSL and provide an SSL certificate name:

require 'webrick'
require 'webrick/https'

cert_name = [
  %w[CN localhost],
]

server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new(:Port => 8000,
                                 :SSLEnable => true,
                                 :SSLCertName => cert_name)

This will start the server with a self-generated self-signed certificate. The certificate will be changed every time the server is restarted.

To create a server with a pre-determined key and certificate you can provide them:

require 'webrick'
require 'webrick/https'
require 'openssl'

cert = OpenSSL::X509::Certificate.new File.read '/path/to/cert.pem'
pkey = OpenSSL::PKey::RSA.new File.read '/path/to/pkey.pem'

server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new(:Port => 8000,
                                 :SSLEnable => true,
                                 :SSLCertificate => cert,
                                 :SSLPrivateKey => pkey)

Proxy Server

WEBrick can act as a proxy server:

require 'webrick'
require 'webrick/httpproxy'

proxy = WEBrick::HTTPProxyServer.new :Port => 8000

trap 'INT' do proxy.shutdown end

See WEBrick::HTTPProxy for further details including modifying proxied responses.

Basic and Digest authentication

WEBrick provides both Basic and Digest authentication for regular and proxy servers. See WEBrick::HTTPAuth, WEBrick::HTTPAuth::BasicAuth and WEBrick::HTTPAuth::DigestAuth.

WEBrick as a Production Web Server

WEBrick can be run as a production server for small loads.

Daemonizing

To start a WEBrick server as a daemon simple run WEBrick::Daemon.start before starting the server.

Dropping Permissions

WEBrick can be started as one user to gain permission to bind to port 80 or 443 for serving HTTP or HTTPS traffic then can drop these permissions for regular operation. To listen on all interfaces for HTTP traffic:

sockets = WEBrick::Utils.create_listeners nil, 80

Then drop privileges:

WEBrick::Utils.su 'www'

Then create a server that does not listen by default:

server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new :DoNotListen => true, # ...

Then overwrite the listening sockets with the port 80 sockets:

server.listeners.replace sockets

Logging

WEBrick can separately log server operations and end-user access. For server operations:

log_file = File.open '/var/log/webrick.log', 'a+'
log = WEBrick::Log.new log_file

For user access logging:

access_log = [
  [log_file, WEBrick::AccessLog::COMBINED_LOG_FORMAT],
]

server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new :Logger => log, :AccessLog => access_log

See WEBrick::AccessLog for further log formats.

Log Rotation

To rotate logs in WEBrick on a HUP signal (like syslogd can send), open the log file in ‘a+’ mode (as above) and trap ‘HUP’ to reopen the log file:

trap 'HUP' do log_file.reopen '/path/to/webrick.log', 'a+'

Copyright

Author: IPR – Internet Programming with Ruby – writers

Copyright © 2000 TAKAHASHI Masayoshi, GOTOU YUUZOU Copyright © 2002 Internet Programming with Ruby writers. All rights reserved.

WIN32OLE_EVENT objects controls OLE event.

WIN32OLE_METHOD objects represent OLE method information.

WIN32OLE_PARAM objects represent param information of the OLE method.

WIN32OLE_RECORD objects represents VT_RECORD OLE variant. Win32OLE returns WIN32OLE_RECORD object if the result value of invoking OLE methods.

If COM server in VB.NET ComServer project is the following:

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices
Public Class ComClass
    Public Structure Book
        <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.BStr)> _
        Public title As String
        Public cost As Integer
    End Structure
    Public Function getBook() As Book
        Dim book As New Book
        book.title = "The Ruby Book"
        book.cost = 20
        Return book
    End Function
End Class

then, you can retrieve getBook return value from the following Ruby script:

require 'win32ole'
obj = WIN32OLE.new('ComServer.ComClass')
book = obj.getBook
book.class # => WIN32OLE_RECORD
book.title # => "The Ruby Book"
book.cost  # => 20

WIN32OLE_TYPE objects represent OLE type libarary information.

WIN32OLE_TYPELIB objects represent OLE tyblib information.

Enumerator::Chain is a subclass of Enumerator, which represents a chain of enumerables that works as a single enumerator.

This type of objects can be created by Enumerable#chain and Enumerator#+.

Enumerator::ArithmeticSequence is a subclass of Enumerator, that is a representation of sequences of numbers with common difference. Instances of this class can be generated by the Range#step and Numeric#step methods.

Fiddle::Pointer is a class to handle C pointers

This class is used as a return value from ObjectSpace::reachable_objects_from.

When ObjectSpace::reachable_objects_from returns an object with references to an internal object, an instance of this class is returned.

You can use the type method to check the type of the internal object.

OpenSSL::Digest allows you to compute message digests (sometimes interchangeably called “hashes”) of arbitrary data that are cryptographically secure, i.e. a Digest implements a secure one-way function.

One-way functions offer some useful properties. E.g. given two distinct inputs the probability that both yield the same output is highly unlikely. Combined with the fact that every message digest algorithm has a fixed-length output of just a few bytes, digests are often used to create unique identifiers for arbitrary data. A common example is the creation of a unique id for binary documents that are stored in a database.

Another useful characteristic of one-way functions (and thus the name) is that given a digest there is no indication about the original data that produced it, i.e. the only way to identify the original input is to “brute-force” through every possible combination of inputs.

These characteristics make one-way functions also ideal companions for public key signature algorithms: instead of signing an entire document, first a hash of the document is produced with a considerably faster message digest algorithm and only the few bytes of its output need to be signed using the slower public key algorithm. To validate the integrity of a signed document, it suffices to re-compute the hash and verify that it is equal to that in the signature.

Among the supported message digest algorithms are:

• SHA, SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384 and SHA512

• MD2, MD4, MDC2 and MD5

• RIPEMD160

• DSS, DSS1 (Pseudo algorithms to be used for DSA signatures. DSS is equal to SHA and DSS1 is equal to SHA1)

For each of these algorithms, there is a sub-class of Digest that can be instantiated as simply as e.g.

digest = OpenSSL::Digest::SHA1.new

Mapping between Digest class and sn/ln

The sn (short names) and ln (long names) are defined in <openssl/object.h> and <openssl/obj_mac.h>. They are textual representations of ASN.1 OBJECT IDENTIFIERs. Each supported digest algorithm has an OBJECT IDENTIFIER associated to it and those again have short/long names assigned to them. E.g. the OBJECT IDENTIFIER for SHA-1 is 1.3.14.3.2.26 and its sn is “SHA1” and its ln is “sha1”.

MD2

• sn: MD2

• ln: md2

MD4

• sn: MD4

• ln: md4

MD5

• sn: MD5

• ln: md5

SHA

• sn: SHA

• ln: SHA

SHA-1

• sn: SHA1

• ln: sha1

SHA-224

• sn: SHA224

• ln: sha224

SHA-256

• sn: SHA256

• ln: sha256

SHA-384

• sn: SHA384

• ln: sha384

SHA-512

• sn: SHA512

• ln: sha512

“Breaking” a message digest algorithm means defying its one-way function characteristics, i.e. producing a collision or finding a way to get to the original data by means that are more efficient than brute-forcing etc. Most of the supported digest algorithms can be considered broken in this sense, even the very popular MD5 and SHA1 algorithms. Should security be your highest concern, then you should probably rely on SHA224, SHA256, SHA384 or SHA512.

Hashing a file

data = File.read('document')
sha256 = OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new
digest = sha256.digest(data)

Hashing several pieces of data at once

data1 = File.read('file1')
data2 = File.read('file2')
data3 = File.read('file3')
sha256 = OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new
sha256 << data1
sha256 << data2
sha256 << data3
digest = sha256.digest

Reuse a Digest instance

data1 = File.read('file1')
sha256 = OpenSSL::Digest::SHA256.new
digest1 = sha256.digest(data1)

data2 = File.read('file2')
sha256.reset
digest2 = sha256.digest(data2)

This class works in conjunction with Psych::Parser to build an in-memory parse tree that represents a YAML document.

Example

parser = Psych::Parser.new Psych::TreeBuilder.new
parser.parse('--- foo')
tree = parser.handler.root

See Psych::Handler for documentation on the event methods used in this class.

Zlib:Inflate is the class for decompressing compressed data. Unlike Zlib::Deflate, an instance of this class is not able to duplicate (clone, dup) itself.

Zlib::GzipWriter is a class for writing gzipped files. GzipWriter should be used with an instance of IO, or IO-like, object.

Following two example generate the same result.

Zlib::GzipWriter.open('hoge.gz') do |gz|
  gz.write 'jugemu jugemu gokou no surikire...'
end

File.open('hoge.gz', 'w') do |f|
  gz = Zlib::GzipWriter.new(f)
  gz.write 'jugemu jugemu gokou no surikire...'
  gz.close
end

To make like gzip(1) does, run following:

orig = 'hoge.txt'
Zlib::GzipWriter.open('hoge.gz') do |gz|
  gz.mtime = File.mtime(orig)
  gz.orig_name = orig
  gz.write IO.binread(orig)
end

NOTE: Due to the limitation of Ruby’s finalizer, you must explicitly close GzipWriter objects by Zlib::GzipWriter#close etc. Otherwise, GzipWriter will be not able to write the gzip footer and will generate a broken gzip file.

Objects of class File::Stat encapsulate common status information for File objects. The information is recorded at the moment the File::Stat object is created; changes made to the file after that point will not be reflected. File::Stat objects are returned by IO#stat, File::stat, File#lstat, and File::lstat. Many of these methods return platform-specific values, and not all values are meaningful on all systems. See also Kernel#test.

exception to wait for reading by EWOULDBLOCK. see IO.select.