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http-server: a simple static HTTP server

http-server is a simple, zero-configuration command-line static HTTP server. It is powerful enough for production usage, but it's simple and hackable enough to be used for testing, local development and learning.

Example of running http-server

Installation:

Running on-demand:

Using npx you can run the script without installing it first:

npx http-server [path] [options]

Globally via npm

npm install --global http-server

This will install http-server globally so that it may be run from the command line anywhere.

Globally via Homebrew

brew install http-server

As a dependency in your npm package:

npm install http-server

Usage:

 http-server [path] [options]

[path] defaults to ./public if the folder exists, and ./ otherwise.

Now you can visit http://localhost:8080 to view your server

Note: Caching is on by default. Add -c-1 as an option to disable caching.

Available Options:

Command Description Defaults
-p or --port Port to use. Use -p 0 to look for an open port, starting at 8080. It will also read from process.env.PORT. 8080
-a Address to use 0.0.0.0
-d Show directory listings true
-i Display autoIndex true
-g or --gzip When enabled it will serve ./public/some-file.js.gz in place of ./public/some-file.js when a gzipped version of the file exists and the request accepts gzip encoding. If brotli is also enabled, it will try to serve brotli first. false
-b or --brotli When enabled it will serve ./public/some-file.js.br in place of ./public/some-file.js when a brotli compressed version of the file exists and the request accepts br encoding. If gzip is also enabled, it will try to serve brotli first. false
-e or --ext Default file extension if none supplied html
-s or --silent Suppress log messages from output
--cors Enable CORS via the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header
-o [path] Open browser window after starting the server. Optionally provide a URL path to open. e.g.: -o /other/dir/
-c Set cache time (in seconds) for cache-control max-age header, e.g. -c10 for 10 seconds. To disable caching, use -c-1. 3600
-U or --utc Use UTC time format in log messages.
--log-ip Enable logging of the client's IP address false
-P or --proxy Proxies all requests which can't be resolved locally to the given url. e.g.: -P http://someurl.com
--proxy-options Pass proxy options using nested dotted objects. e.g.: --proxy-options.secure false
--username Username for basic authentication
--password Password for basic authentication
-S, --tls or --ssl Enable secure request serving with TLS/SSL (HTTPS) false
-C or --cert Path to ssl cert file cert.pem
-K or --key Path to ssl key file key.pem
-r or --robots Automatically provide a /robots.txt (The content of which defaults to User-agent: *\nDisallow: /) false
--no-dotfiles Do not show dotfiles
--mimetypes Path to a .types file for custom mimetype definition
-h or --help Print this list and exit.
-v or --version Print the version and exit.

Magic Files

  • index.html will be served as the default file to any directory requests.
  • 404.html will be served if a file is not found. This can be used for Single-Page App (SPA) hosting to serve the entry page.

Catch-all redirect

To implement a catch-all redirect, use the index page itself as the proxy with:

http-server --proxy http://localhost:8080?

Note the ? at the end of the proxy URL. Thanks to @houston3 for this clever hack!

TLS/SSL

First, you need to make sure that openssl is installed correctly, and you have key.pem and cert.pem files. You can generate them using this command:

openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -new -nodes -x509 -days 3650 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem

You will be prompted with a few questions after entering the command. Use 127.0.0.1 as value for Common name if you want to be able to install the certificate in your OS's root certificate store or browser so that it is trusted.

This generates a cert-key pair and it will be valid for 3650 days (about 10 years).

Then you need to run the server with -S for enabling SSL and -C for your certificate file.

http-server -S -C cert.pem

If you wish to use a passphrase with your private key you can include one in the openssl command via the -passout parameter (using password of foobar)

e.g. openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -passout pass:foobar -keyout key.pem -x509 -days 365 -out cert.pem

For security reasons, the passphrase will only be read from the NODE_HTTP_SERVER_SSL_PASSPHRASE environment variable.

This is what should be output if successful:

Starting up http-server, serving ./ through https

http-server settings:
CORS: disabled
Cache: 3600 seconds
Connection Timeout: 120 seconds
Directory Listings: visible
AutoIndex: visible
Serve GZIP Files: false
Serve Brotli Files: false
Default File Extension: none

Available on:
  https://127.0.0.1:8080
  https://192.168.1.101:8080
  https://192.168.1.104:8080
Hit CTRL-C to stop the server

Development

Checkout this repository locally, then:

$ npm i
$ npm start

Now you can visit http://localhost:8080 to view your server

You should see the turtle image in the screenshot above hosted at that URL. See the ./public folder for demo content.