T-Service is a tiny Python tool for starting a local static file server using Tornado. I use it for previewing sites before pushing them to GitHub Pages.
T-Service is on PyPI, install it with: pip install tservice.
T-Service works on Python 2.7 and Python 3.
T-Service installs a command line utility called tserve.
tserve has one required parameter:
the directory from which to serve files.
For example, to start the server from a directory called build
that's in your current directory, use this command:
tserve build
The server starts on port 8000 by default, so you can look for your
site at http://localhost:8000.
If port 8000 is in use, or you want to use a different port, use the
-p/--port flag:
tserve --port 7654 build
If you need to run the server so that it serves the files from some prefix
use the -f/--prefix flag:
tserve --prefix myusername build
That will cause the files to be served from
http://localhost:8000/myusername/.
(You may need to do this so that the local site matches where your
site will be deployed, e.g. GitHub Pages or a university server.)
Type control-C at the command line to stop the server.
I've found I sometimes need to serve files with a prefix on the URL, and I don't know how to do that with Python's builtin server.