web.boost

introduction

• Use Boost Beast Advanced server, flex (plain + SSL) as template for handling web operations.
• Currently developed on Debian Linux Trixie
• integrates lua based html generator by riki moe (りき萌)

sample configuration file (www.cfg)

thread_count = 2
port_http = 80
port_https = 443
listen_address = 0.0.0.0
content_directory = web/content
static_host = static.example.com
static_directory = web/static
static_extension = jpg
static_extension = jpeg
static_extension = png
static_extension = css
static_extension = txt
static_extension = ico
static_extension = gif
certificate_path_fullchain = certs/fullchain.pem
certificate_path_privkey = certs/privkey.pem

build outline

• compile environment: C++20
• requires libssl-dev, libboost-dev (json, log, program_options, serialization, url)
• add luajit, sol2 and fmt

build lua modules: luajit, sol2

# acquire, build & install luajit
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/LuaJIT/LuaJIT.git
pushd LuaJIT
sed -i 's/#XCFLAGS+= -DLUAJIT_ENABLE_LUA52COMPAT/XCFLAGS+= -DLUAJIT_ENABLE_LUA52COMPAT/' src/Makefile
make
sudo make install
popd

# acquire & install sol2 (lua helpers for c++)
git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/ThePhD/sol2.git
sudo mv -n sol2/include/sol /usr/local/include/

build fmt

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt.git
pushd fmt
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -D FMT_TEST=FALSE ..
make
sudo make install
popd

build project

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/rburkholder/boost.web.git
pushd boost.web
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
popd

security, run

To run on a port under 1024, requires something like:

sudo setcap CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE=+eip ~/projects/web.boost/build/src/boost.web
~/projects/web.boost/build/src/boost.web

current features

• 2026/08/09
  • use sol2/luajit to load and run lua files
• 2026/08/02
  • GET static html and support files from a directory
  • supports HTTP and HTTPS

sample test page (test.lua)

• influenced by riki's demo code
• copy src/lua/html.lua to web/lib
• create test.lua in web/content

  package.path="web/lib/?.lua"
  
  local h = require( 'html' )
  
  local output = h.Document{
    lang = "en",
  
    h.head{
      h.meta{charset = "UTF-8"},
      h.title{"Hello, world!"},
    },
  
    h.body{
      h.h1{"Hello, world!"},
      h.p{
        "This is an example of the little HTML templating framework."
      },
      h.p{
        "As you can see, it is fully capable of generating any kind of markup ",
        "you'd ever want.", h.br(),
        "It can even do things like ", h.b"bold text", "!"
      },
      h.p"This is some embedded HTML <p></p>"
    }
  }
  Render( 'text/html', tostring( output ) )

reference

• The Evolution of Lua

alternatives

• wt web toolkit - designed for single page applications with total control over page generation - not recommeded for internet centric applications - no lua
• drogon web framework - excellent functionality but comes up short on SSL capability and reliability - proprietary web template, no lua
• openresty - Web Platform Based on Nginx and LuaJIT - may come back to this
• luvit - Asynchronous I/O for Lua