dummy-http-server

npx dummy-http-server

This a very simple dummy-http-server. It accepts any http connection with any http-method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) and prints detailed information about this request to STDOUT:

• Timestamp
• HTTP-Method
• HTTP-Version
• Requested URL
• Headers
• Body

Use cases:

• Development of any client-application which accesses a server.
• Especially: debugging of your client requests if you are developing against an API which you do not control.
• Example: the api-server does not accept your request and you want to debug the conneciton. Therefore you just want to see what your client is sending to the server.

Design goals & advantages:

• KISS (keep it stupid simple)
• No dependencies (only the built-in node:http module is used)
• Simple usage
• No extras
• Open source

Usage

Default config

npx dummy-http-server

Default configuration:

• Listens on port 8080 on localhost
• Sends response back to client with content-type = 'text/html', body = 'OK', status-code = 200

Advanced config

Command line options

• --content-type: content-type of the response to the client
• --response: body of the response to the client
• --response-status: HTTP status of the response to the client
• --port: port of the listening server
• --hostname: hostname of the listening server\n

Sending a custom respsonse

npx dummy-http-server --content-type=application/json --response="{\"myMessage\": \"hello\", \"myStatusCode\": \"1234\"}" --response-status=201

Using a custom hostname and port

npx dummy-http-server --port=7000 --hostname=myHostname

Making the server accessible from the outside (LAN, internet):

Make sure to set the hostname accordingly.

• Step 1: Get your local IP-address (on windows i.e. use ipconfig).
• Step 2: Set your IP-address as the hostname (example: your local IP-address is 192.168.5.100): npx dummy-http-server --port=7000 --hostname=192.168.5.100
• Step 3: If you want to make the server accessible via the internet, configure your router and firewall (i.e. with a port forwarding)

Competitors

netcat

nc -l -p 12345

Disadvantage: Will not send any response to the client & only works on linux (MacOS?)

netcat in a loop

while true; do printf 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n\r\n' | nc -Nl 8000; done

Disadvantage: The output is not very well structred & only works on linux (MacOS?)

Roll your on server (nodejs, Java, Python,...)

Can do; but why to reinvent the wheel?

License

MIT - see license file