/corentin.net

Source code of my website

Primary LanguageC++OtherNOASSERTION

How to make your own website in C++ on a RaspberryPI

Configure your network

  • Get a static public IP address for your router (you need to ask your internet service provider for this, some of them provide this service for free).
  • Get a static local IP for your RaspberryPI (you need to enter your router's configuration to do this).
  • Forward the ports 80 and 443 (for HTTP and HTTPS) to your RaspberryPI (again, this is done in the router's interfae).
  • Open these ports in the firewall of your RaspberryPI, if you have one (no firewall is installed by default in Raspbian).
  • Rent a domain name. This can take a couple days to be effective, so plan ahead.

Configure your SSL certifiates on the RaspberryPI

  • Install Certbot
sudo apt install certbot
  • Request certificate
sudo certbot certonly --standalone
  • When asked, enter the domain names of your website. If your domain is mywebsite.com, enter mywebsite.com,www.mywebsite.com (and any other combination you plan to use, separated by a comma).
  • The tool will validate your server, and if you configured your network properly (steps above) you should obtain your SSL certificate. It saves the various needed files in /etc/letsencrypt/live/mywebsite.com/* (with mywebsite.com replaced with your domain name).

Build the HTTP server software

Native

Build:

mkdir build_native
cd build_native
cmake ..
make install
# output in build_native/website

Cross-compile

Set up (inspired from this):

sudo apt install crossbuild-essential-armhf

Build:

mkdir build_pi
cd build_pi
cmake .. -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER="arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++"
make
# output in build_pi/website

Setup systemd to run server in background

  • Using sudo, create a new file in /etc/systemd/system called, for example, myserver.service, and fill it with the following (update the path to the web server executable):
[Unit]
Description=My webserver

[Service]
ExecStart=/<absolute-path-to-your-server>/<your-server-executable-name>
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
  • Make this file executable:
sudo chmod +x myserver.service
  • Enable running this on startup:
sudo systemctl enable myserver.service
  • Start it now:
sudo systemctl start myserver.service

  • Note: for this to work properly, your executable should run an infinite loop while the server is running, and only terminate when receiving the SIGTERM or SIGINT signals. In particular, using std::getline(std::cin, ...) or any other similar IO trick to create the infinite wait will not work (systemd will continuously kill and restart the server).

  • To restart the server:

sudo systemctl restart myserver.service
  • To stop the server:
sudo systemctl stop myserver.service
  • To stop the server permanently (so that it does not start again on next system restart):
sudo systemctl disable myserver.service