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Jetforce

An experimental python server for the new, under development Gemini Protocol.

Learn more about Project Gemini here.

Features

A modern python codebase with type hinting and black formatting.
A built-in static file server with support for gemini directory files.
Lightweight, single-file framework with zero dependencies.
Supports concurrent connections using an asynchronous event loop.
Extendable - loosely implements the WSGI server/application pattern.

Installation

Requires Python 3.7+ and OpenSSL.

The latest release can be installed from PyPI

$ pip install jetforce

Or, simply clone the repository and run the script directly

$ git clone https://github.com/michael-lazar/jetforce
$ cd jetforce
$ ./jetforce.py

Usage

Use the --help flag to view command-line options:

$ jetforce --help
usage: jetforce [-h] [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--tls-certfile FILE]
                [--tls-keyfile FILE] [--hostname HOSTNAME] [--dir DIR]
                [--index-file INDEX_FILE]

An Experimental Gemini Protocol Server

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --host HOST           Address to bind server to (default: 127.0.0.1)
  --port PORT           Port to bind server to (default: 1965)
  --tls-certfile FILE   TLS certificate file (default: None)
  --tls-keyfile FILE    TLS private key file (default: None)
  --hostname HOSTNAME   Server hostname (default: localhost)
  --dir DIR             Path on the filesystem to serve (default: /var/gemini)
  --index-file INDEX_FILE
                        The gemini directory index file (default: index.gmi)

If the TLS cert/keyfile is not provided, a self-signed certificate will
automatically be generated and saved to your temporary directory.

TLS Certificates

The gemini specification requires that all connections be sent over TLS. Before you deploy jetforce, you should either generate your own self-signed certificate, or obtain one from a Certificate Authority like Let's Encrypt.

In order to make local development easier, if you do not specify the certificate arguments, jetforce will automatically generate a temporary ad-hoc TLS certificate to use. Here's the OpenSSL command that jetforce uses internally:

$ openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout {hostname}.key \
    -nodes -x509 -out {hostname}.crt -subj "/CN={hostname}"

TLS Client Certificates

There are currently no plans to support transient self-signed client certificates. This is due to a techinical limitation of the python standard library's ssl module, which is described in detail here.

Support for verified client certificates will be added in a future version.

Hostname

Because the gemini protocol sends the whole URL in the request, it's required that you declare which hostname your server is expecting to receive traffic under. Jetforce will respond to any request containing a URL that don't match your hostname with a status of Proxy Request Refused.

Using python, you can modify this behavior to do fancy things like building a proxy server for HTTP requests. See http_proxy.py for an example of how to accomplish this.

Serving Files

Jetforce serves files from the /var/gemini/ directory by default:

Files with the .gmi extension will be interpreted as text/gemini.
Other files will have their mimetype guessed based on their file extension.
Directories will look for a file with the name index.gmi.
If an index file does not exist, a directory listing will be generated.

CGI scripts are not currently supported. This feature might be added in a future version.

License

This project is licensed under the Floodgap Free Software License.

The Floodgap Free Software License (FFSL) has one overriding mandate: that software using it, or derivative works based on software that uses it, must be free. By free we mean simply "free as in beer" -- you may put your work into open or closed source packages as you see fit, whether or not you choose to release your changes or updates publicly, but you must not ask any fee for it.

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