PHP Multi-Client Web Server

A custom multi-client, socket-based web server written entirely in PHP.
Supports static file serving, custom routes, file uploads, and downloads.

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📌 Features

• Socket-based server using PHP's socket_* functions
• Multi-client support via non-blocking sockets
• Custom routing for GET & POST endpoints
• Static file serving with extension-based MIME detection
• File uploads with validation (max 5 MB, safe filenames, timestamped)
• File downloads with secure path checks
• Request logging with timestamps, IP, status codes
• Security checks for directory traversal and forbidden extensions

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📂 Project Structure

root/
│
├── server.php # Main server script
├── public/ # Public static files 
      │
      ├── index.html
      ├──styles.css
├── views/ # PHP templates for dynamic pages
      │
      ├── home.php
      ├── about.php
      ├── submit.php
├── uploads/ # Uploaded files (auto-created)
└── logs/ # Server logs (auto-created)
      │
      └── server.log

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🚀 Workflow

Requirements

• PHP 7.4+ with sockets extension enabled
• CLI access to run the server
• If not present, enable it in php.ini. Check if sockets are enabled:

php -m | grep sockets

Run the Server

php server.php

By default it starts at:

http://127.0.0.1:8080

Routes

Method	Path	Description
GET	/	Home page
GET	/about	About page
POST	/submit	Simple form submission
POST	/upload	File upload endpoint
GET	/uploads	List of uploaded files
GET	/uploads/{filename}	Download a file

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📦 Uploads

• Max file size: 5 MB
• Auto-renames with timestamp to avoid overwrites
• Cleans filenames from special characters

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🛡 Security

• Only serves allowed file extensions (html, css, js, png, jpg, jpeg, gif, txt)
• Prevents directory traversal attacks
• Upload/download paths restricted to project folders

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📜 Logging

• Every request is logged to logs/server.log:

[YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS] <client_ip> "<METHOD> <PATH>" <STATUS_CODE>

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🧠 Notes

• This is not production-grade — it’s a learning project.
• Designed to demonstrate socket programming and web server fundamentals in PHP.
• For production, use Apache/Nginx with PHP-FPM.

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📚 References

• PHP Manual – Sockets
• RFC 2616 – HTTP/1.1 Specification
• MIME Types List
• OWASP File Upload Security Guidelines
• PHP File Upload Docs
• Non-blocking Sockets in PHP

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👨‍💻 Developed by - @Arijit2175