gnetlark

Fast HTTP server that supports handlers written in Starlark.

Pronounced as "jetlark", just to keep people on their toes.

Features and limitations

• It's fast, due to the excellent performance of gnet.
• Starlark is easy to learn and use. It is similar to Python.
• The selection of functions available from Starlark scripts is currently a bit limited. There is no file or database access.
• gnetlark offers an easy and fun way to try out the Starlark programming language.
• Support for providing and calling REST/JSON APIs might be added in the future.
• Serving static files is currently not supported, unless you embed them.

Installation

Quick installation of the latest version, using Go 1.17 or later:

go install github.com/xyproto/gnetlark/cmd/gnetlark@latest

Another way of building and installing the server:

git clone https://github.com/xyproto/gnetlark
cd gnetlark/cmd/gnetlark
go build
sudo install -Dm755 gnetlark /usr/bin/gnetlark

Configuration

One way to allow access to port 80 on Linux:

sudo setcap cap_net_bind_service=+ep /usr/bin/gnetlark

It's also possible to specify a port with --port or run it as root (not recommended).

Depends on

• gnet, for serving HTTP.
• starlark-go, for running Starlark scripts.

Screenshot

Screenshot of a page served by index.star, with the server running on port 7711:

Served in 0ms:

Example

A short Starlark script for handling requests and outputting "Hello, World!" (hello.star):

def index(status, msg, method, path, date):
    return "HTTP/1.1 " + status + "\r\nServer: gnetlark\r\nDate: " + date + "\r\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8\r\n\r\n" + "Hello, World!"

The "Hello World" page can be served by a command like this:

gnetlark -main hello.star -port 7711

General info

• Version: 1.0.3
• Author: Alexander F. Rødseth <xyproto@archlinux.org>
• License: BSD-3