python3.8 http.server - ConnectionResetError: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer

Question

I've set up a simple http server to share some files with a friend. I know there are other ways of sharing files, but I'm interested in doing it this way and solving the issues raised.

The server side code is simple :

 #!/bin/bash
 /usr/bin/python3 -u -m http.server -d /srv/carmine 2339

where carmine is a directory containing files.

I can access files through localhost:2339 and my friend can download files and reports no error on their side, but my logs show this:

   Exception happened during processing of request from ('xxxxxxxxx', 55664)
   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/socketserver.py", line 650, in process_request_thread
       self.finish_request(request, client_address)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/socketserver.py", line 360, in finish_request
       self.RequestHandlerClass(request, client_address, self)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/http/server.py", line 647, in __init__
       super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/socketserver.py", line 720, in __init__
       self.handle()
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/http/server.py", line 427, in handle
       self.handle_one_request()
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/http/server.py", line 415, in handle_one_request
       method()
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/http/server.py", line 654, in do_GET
       self.copyfile(f, self.wfile)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/http/server.py", line 853, in copyfile
       shutil.copyfileobj(source, outputfile)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/shutil.py", line 205, in copyfileobj
       fdst_write(buf)
     File "/usr/lib/python3.8/socketserver.py", line 799, in write
       self._sock.sendall(b)
   ConnectionResetError: [Errno 104] Connection reset by peer
   

What is happening here? Do I need to set some server side parameters?

Answer 1

This message means that the other side of the connection "hung up" on your server. This could have happened for a number of reasons: you canceled a file download, someone killed a program accessing your http server, or a large file caused a client timeout while downloading, among other things.

Right now you're using the default SimpleHTTPRequestHandler. If you're curious what caused the error and wanted to, you could create a subclass of it and write some logging functions that would tell you things like 1. what IP is accessing your server, 2. request parameters, 3. what file they're attempting to download, etc.