FlashLin

The blazing fast Rust web server

Nginx's reverse-proxy power, Apache's PHP hosting flexibility, and Caddy's zero-friction TOML setup — in a single, memory-safe Rust binary. Version 3.1 adds RealWeb, a built-in realtime hub: authenticated channels, resume after reconnect and backend publishing over HTTP, alongside plain WebSocket proxying. Version 3.0 added supervised Node.js and Python apps. See the roadmap below for ongoing hardening work.

Website · Documentation · Docker Hub

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What is FlashLin?

FlashLin is a single-binary web server built on Tokio + Hyper, with optional HTTP/3 through Quinn. Its feature set includes capabilities familiar from other servers:

FlashLin does this	Like
Reverse proxy, round-robin upstream routing	Nginx
PHP-FPM / FastCGI hosting, virtual hosts	Apache
In-memory response cache	OpenLiteSpeed
Simple TOML config, zero-friction setup	Caddy
Memory-safe, zero unsafe code	Rust

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Features

Feature	Status
HTTP/1.1 + HTTP/2 (Tokio + Hyper)	✅
HTTP/3 over QUIC + TLS 1.3	✅ Optional experimental http3 build; setup and limits
TLS / HTTPS (rustls — no OpenSSL required)	✅
PHP-FPM + FastCGI (full protocol)	✅
Reverse proxy	✅
Virtual hosts (per-domain .toml files)	✅
In-memory response cache (RAM, with TTL)	✅
Gzip + Brotli compression	✅
ETag / Last-Modified / 304 Not Modified	✅
Security headers (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame, …)	✅
Rate limiting (req/min + burst)	✅
IP allow / deny lists	✅
Path traversal prevention	✅
Dotfile + sensitive file blocking	✅
Per-directory config (.flashweb files)	✅
.htaccess redirect / rewrite rules	✅
nginx.conf redirect rules	✅
Prometheus metrics endpoint	✅
Connection overload limit (HTTP 503)	✅
Graceful shutdown	✅
Structured JSON logging	✅
Per-virtual-host cache and rate-limit state	✅ v2
Static directory mounts	✅ v2
.flashweb directory ACLs and error pages	✅ v2
Configured Tokio worker count and header-read limits	✅ v2
Single binary — no runtime dependencies	✅
Hot config reload	✅ Opt-in --watch, validated snapshots
WebSocket proxy (HTTP/1 upgrades)	✅ v2
RealWeb realtime hub: authenticated channels, resume after reconnect, acks, presence, backend publish

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Install

Linux — one-line install

curl -fsSL https://flashlin.com/install_linux.sh | bash

Build from source

Tested with Rust 1.95; use a current stable toolchain:

rustup update stable

# HTTP-only binary
cargo build --release

# With TLS/HTTPS support
cargo build --release --features tls

# All three protocols, plus automatic certificates
cargo build --release --locked --features acme,http3

Binary is at target/release/flashlin.

HTTP/3 also needs [http3] enabled = true, TLS certificates and an open UDP port. See the protocol guide and example config.

Docker (recommended for production)

# Pull the public image
docker pull endurasolution/flashlin:latest

# Run (HTTP)
docker run -d -p 80:80 \
  -v ./config/server.toml:/etc/flashlin/server.toml:ro \
  -v ./public:/var/www/html:ro \
  endurasolution/flashlin:latest

# Run (HTTPS)
docker run -d -p 80:80 -p 443:443 \
  -v ./config/server.toml:/etc/flashlin/server.toml:ro \
  -v ./public:/var/www/html:ro \
  -v ./certs:/etc/flashlin/certs:ro \
  endurasolution/flashlin:latest

See dockerflashlin/README.md for the full Docker + docker-compose guide.

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Quick start

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/endurasolution/flashlin.git
cd flashlin

# 2. Build
cargo build --release

# 3. Run (uses server.toml in current directory)
./target/release/flashlin

# 4. Custom config path
./target/release/flashlin /etc/flashlin/server.toml

Open http://localhost:80.

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Configuration

All config lives in a single server.toml. See server.toml for the full reference with every option documented inline.

Static site

[server]
host = "0.0.0.0"
port = 80
root = "./public"

[[routes]]
path  = "/"
root  = "./public"
index = "index.html"

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗