Build Your Own HTTP Server in Python

A lightwieght HTTP server from scratch using Python sockets to understand how web server works internally.

Why Build this

I wanted to understand what frameworks like Flask and FastPI abstract away, including:

• TCP socket
• HTTP request/response lifecyle
• Routing
• JSON APIs
• POST request handling
• Basic server architecture

Features

• Handles raw TCP socket connections

• Parses HTTP requests

• Supports GET routes:

  • /
  • /about
  • /api

• Supports POST requests

  • /signup
  • /login

• Returs JSON responses

• Modular architecture using seperate files

• Basic in-memory user storage

Tech Stack

• Python 3
• socket module
• json module

Project Structure

http-server/ 
├── server.py
├── router.py 
├── handlers.py 
└── README.md

How to run

python3 server.py

Then open

http://localhost:8080

Example Requests

GET

curl http://localhost:8080/api

Signup

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/signup \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"username":"name","password":"password"}'

Login

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/login \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"username":"name","password":"password"}'

Concepts Learned

• HTTP protocol basics
• Request parsing
• Status codes
• Content-Type headers
• Routing systems
• Authentication flow basics
• Debugging raw network requests
• Future Improvements
• Multi-threaded request handling
• Persistent database storage
• Password hashing
• JWT authentication
• Static file serving
• Better HTTP compliance

Key Learning Outcome

Building this project helped me understand how backend frameworks operate internally instead of only consuming abstractions.