Create a website using C++ as the server-side language

3 min readSep 14, 2023

Let's get into, Server Side Language as C++

Setup Server Side Language: C++ program that communicates with an Apache server to run a Linux command and display the output on a web page

to run the ‘ls’ command: to list all files and directories

1. Set Up Your Development Environment

Install a C++ compiler. Linux, you likely already have a C++ compiler installed.

yum install cpp

2. Install Apache Server and start the Services

Here, I'm Using a Linux Platform (Amazon Linux)

#install the package
yum install httpd
#Start the services
systemctl start httpd
#enable it
systemctl enable httpd

The server has started and running on port 80

3. Now Set up the server to add the web pages to server clients

Clients can now see the webpage on the URL

Go to the default configured path to server pages
CGI-bin: For Server side language
HTML: Front-end Languages/websites

Follow the command to add server-side language as C++

#go to the path of Server Backend diretory
cd /var/www/cgi-bin
#create a file cli.cpp
vim cli.cpp
#add the cpp code

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdio>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    string command = "ls";
//popen to open the cmd string variable
    FILE* pipe = popen(command.c_str(), "r");

    if (!pipe) {
        cerr << "popen() failed!" << endl;
        return 1;
    }
// set the http response header
//pre tag of Html to show the same output
    cout << "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";
    cout << "<html><body><pre>";

    char buffer[128];
    while (fgets(buffer, sizeof(buffer), pipe) != nullptr) {
        cout << buffer;
    }

    pclose(pipe);
    cout << "</pre></body></html>";

    return 0;
}

The popen() function opens a process by creating a pipe, forking, and invoking the shell.

Compile the C++ program

g++ cli.cpp -o cli.out

Ignore all other files as I performing the other demos.

Now we have the compiled file cli.out

4. Create a CGI Script

Open your Apache configuration file (usually located on Linux) and add the following lines to enable CGI scripts:

vim /etc/http/conf.d/welcome.conf

Append the following code: to make the scripts executable

Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl .sh .cpp

Add the path to your Cpp file to be executed on client request:

Create a file and add the path:

cd /var/www/cgi-bin
vim run_command.cgi

#!/bin/bash
/var/www/cgi-bin/cli.out

#/path/to/your/command_runner

Now make the file executable

chmod +x run_command.cgi

#restart the Server
systemctl restart httpd

5. Run Your Server

In my case I have a public IP, you can add your IP or local host

Browser: http://43.204.130.223/cgi-bin/cli.out

List the files on the current working directory of cgi-bin

That’s it! You’ve created a basic C++ program that communicates with an Apache server to run a Linux command and display the output on a web page.

Successfully Server-Side language of CPP has been Implemented..!!

Thank you