The Xavante Lua Web Server

Overview

Xavante is a Lua HTTP 1.1 Web server that uses a modular architecture based on URI mapped handlers. Xavante currently offers a file handler, a redirect handler and a CGILua handler. Those are used for general files, URI remapping and CGILua scripts respectively. A WebDAV handler is in the works.

Xavante is free software and uses the same license as Lua.

Status

Current version is 1.3.1 and works with Lua 5.1.

Download

Xavante source code can be downloaded from its LuaForge page.

Dependencies

Xavante dependencies can be separated by the used handlers:

Xavante Core

File Handler (optional)

LuaFileSystem 1.2.1

CGILua handler (optional)

The portability of Xavante is determined by its binary components (LuaSocket, LuaFileSystem and Rings) and Lua itself. The other components are written in Lua and are as portable as Lua itself.

History

Xavante 1.3.1 [31/Aug/2007]

Replaces the use of the cgi table by cgilua.POST and cgilua.QUERY in the examples
Correcting the behavior of coxpcall when used with C functions (patch by Ignacio Burgueño)
Correcting issues with chucked encoding. Now it only sends the Transfer-Encoding header when necessary. Correcting the handling of cached files in filehandler. (patches by Ignacio Burgueño)
New /web structure, using a dynamic index to documentation in /web/doc/modulename

Xavante 1.3 [24/Aug/2007]

Uses Lua 5.1
Fixed headers to send the header twice if it's defined twice, instead of concat'ing with commas (previous behavior was broken when sending cookies)
Removed the restriction of only handling URLs that corresponded to files in the filesystem. Now cgilua.dispatcher can map URLs like /apps/wiki/... into whatever it needs. Patch by Mauricio Bomfim.
Corrected the PATH_INFO handling for cgilua.dispatcher
Code refactoring by Thomas Harning (Bug [#767])
Better error handling, using io.stderr instead of print
Added the correct prefix to error codes (by Zachary P. Landau)
Support for caching based on last-modified implemented by Zachary P. Landau, based on the desing of HTTP.lua (by PA)
Content Encoding handling using encoding.lua as a configuration file, added svgz encoding and content-type
Fixed bug [#510] filehandler does not send correct headers for 404 error (found by Matthew Burke)

Xavante 1.2 [20/Sep/2006]

Uses Compat-5.1 Release 5
Handles multivalued HTTP headers
Added HTTP chunked mode response
New startup method, using KEPLER_INIT if available
New configuration option for the Xavante startup message
Redirection sends a 302 status instead of a 301 (less client caching)
Changed xavante/server.lua to xavante/xavante.lua for a simpler require"xavante" instead of require"xavante.server"
Uses Rings instead of VEnv in the CGILua handler
Minor bug fixes in the CGILua handler

Xavante 1.1 [12/Jul/2005]

Sajax
Uses Copas.step() to allow more control of the Xavante loop.
Uses coxpcall 1.6
New documentation with installation examples using Kepler file structure
Code cleanup, minor bug fixes

Xavante 1.1 Beta [17/Mar/2005]

First public release
Refactored to use Copas
Source base merged with luahttpd
New configuration file with simpler rules

Xavante 1.0 [Feb/2004]

(not released to the public)

Credits

Xavante 1.3 was implemented by Javier Guerra, André Carregal, and Fábio Mascarenhas with the help of Mauricio Bomfim, Matthew Burke, Thomas Harning and Zachary P. Landau.

Xavante 1.2 was implemented by Javier Guerra, André Carregal, Fábio Mascarenhas and Leonardo Godinho.

Xavante 1.1 was redesigned and implemented by Javier Guerra and André Carregal. It merged Javier's work with luahttpd and André's work with Copas and Xavante 1.0. luahttpd is now part of Xavante.

Xavante 1.0 was designed and implemented by André Carregal as part of the Kepler Project with contributions from Renato Crivano and Danilo Tuler. Xavante 1.0 development was sponsored by Fábrica Digital and Hands.

Contact us

For more information please contact us. Comments are welcome!

You can also reach other Xavante developers and users on the Kepler Project mailing list.