kiwix-serve cant instantiate HTTP daemon on windows

[rgaudin]

Using https://tmp.kiwix.org/ci/dev_preview/zim-tools_windows/kiwix-tools_win-x86_64-2024-09-02.zip on Windows 11 (VM) I can't seem to start kiwix-serve.

Either as regular user or administrator, I always get the following error:

C:\Users\reg\test-tools>kiwix-serve.exe -p 8001 ..\python-libzim\rlz\test.zim
Unable to instantiate the HTTP daemon. The port 8001 is maybe already occupied or need more permissions to be open. Please try as root or with a port number higher or equal to 1024.

[mgautierfr]

This may be related to #673
Can you test with kiwix-serve.exe -i ipv4 -p 8001 foo.zim ?

[rgaudin]

It works ; I got the same dialog btw.

[rgaudin]

Should we update the error message then?

[kelson42]

What happens exactly here which leads to this error? @sgourdas Any idea?

[sgourdas]

That is pretty strange.

From a quick look at the code, the only difference in flow that I can see, when no -i parameter is supplied, is the address variable being left unitialized. But regardless, without explicitly assigned it to "" it should still have that value.

Regardless, even though it should be automatically initialized as an empty string we could still assign it explicitly when the -i option is not provided, just to ensure consistency, or remove the other assignments that do the same.

I will try to test when as soon as I get time.

[sgourdas]

@kelson42 is there a way for me to build kiwix-serve for Windows?

[rgaudin]

@sgourdas ; you can using kiwix-build ; see the windows notes on the Wiki

[kelson42]

@sgourdas I believe this bug might be just fixed by properly analysing the code.

[sgourdas]

@kelson42 let's see if this is fixed with #703 or else I have an idea.