httpserver3: a simple static HTTP server

httpserver3 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.

Installation:

Running on-demand:

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

npx httpserver3 [path] [options]

Globally via npm

npm install --global httpserver3

This will install httpserver3 globally so that it may be run from the command line anywhere.

Globally via Homebrew

brew install httpserver3
 

As a dependency in your npm package:

npm install httpserver3

Usage:

 httpserver3 [path] [options]

[path] defaults to ./

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 ./some-file.js.gz in place of ./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 ./some-file.js.br in place of ./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:

httpserver3 --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.

httpserver3 -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 httpserver3, serving ./ through https

httpserver3 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 ./ folder for demo content.