Build your first web server using the Actix Web framework in Rust

Learn how to build your first web server using the Actix Web framework in Rust.

This blog post covers the setup, adding dependencies, creating the web server, and starting it.

Actix Web provides a powerful and efficient framework for building web applications in Rust, combining the performance benefits of Rust with the ease of use of a high-level web framework.

Get started with Rust and Actix Web today!

Introduction

In recent years, Rust has gained popularity among developers due to its strong memory safety guarantees and performance.

Actix Web, a powerful and efficient web framework, is built using Rust and provides a robust foundation for building web applications.

In this blog post, we will guide you through the process of building your first web server using the Actix Web framework in Rust.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into building our web server, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

Rust programming language installed on your machine
A basic understanding of Rust syntax and concepts

Setting Up a New Rust Project

The first step is to create a new Rust project. Open your terminal or command prompt and navigate to the directory where you want to create your project.

Run the following command to create a new Rust project:

$ cargo new web-server
$ cd web-server

Adding Dependencies

Next, we need to add the Actix Web dependency to our project. Open the Cargo.toml file in your project directory and add the following lines:

[dependencies]
actix-web = "3.3.2"

Save the file and run the following command to fetch and build the dependencies:

$ cargo build

Creating the Web Server

Now that we have set up our project and added the Actix Web dependency,

let's start building our web server. Create a new file called main.rs in the src directory and add the following code:

use actix_web::{get, web, App, HttpResponse, HttpServer, Responder};

#[get("/")]
async fn index() -> impl Responder {
    HttpResponse::Ok().body("Hello, World!")
}

#[actix_web::main]
async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
    HttpServer::new(|| {
        App::new()
            .service(index)
    })
    .bind("127.0.0.1:8080")?
    .run()
    .await
}

In the above code, we define a simple handler function index that returns a plain text response.

We then use the HttpServer to bind our handler function to the root path ("/") and run the server on localhost port 8080.

Starting the Web Server

To start the web server, run the following command in your terminal:

$ cargo run

You should see the following output:

Starting server at http://127.0.0.1:8080

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8080.

You should see the message "Hello, World!" displayed on the page. Congratulations!

You have successfully built your first web server using the Actix Web framework in Rust.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we explored the process of building a web server using the Actix Web framework in Rust.

We covered the initial setup, adding dependencies, creating the web server, and starting it.

Actix Web provides a powerful and efficient framework for building web applications in Rust, combining the performance benefits of Rust with the ease of use of a high-level web framework.

With this knowledge, you can now start building your own web applications using Actix Web and Rust.