@abcnews/mostess

Mostess

The hostess.

A quick 'n dirty HTTP server that serves up a configurable mix of dev & production resources. Use this to swap in local resources while browsing a production site, or redirect resources to a local dev server.

Usage

This runs on port 80 and thus needs to be run as root. To set up:

• sudo node ./index.js -c <config.js>
• Change your /etc/hosts file to point the remote server to localhost

The hosts file should look as follows:

0.0.0.0	www.example.org

The server will continue to run until you kill it manually.

Config

Config is managed as a Javascript module. The following values are supported:

• paths: An array containing local paths to search in. A local path is an array with two values: the requested path as a regex, and the local path it maps to. Eg. ["/", "/home/me/www/"]
• searchandreplace: An object containing values to search and replace in the url. Eg. {"v1.0.0": "v1.0.1"}
• ssl: An optional object containing the following: ** key: a path to a SSL key ** cert: a path to the SSL cert. ** passphrase: a string to unlock the private key (optional);

An example config follows:

module.exports = {
  searchandreplace: [
    // Point the remote foo to the local bar
    ['foo.js', 'bar.js'],
  ],
  redirect: [
    // Redirect assets to another server
    // foo.css or bar.css will be redirected to the server on localhost:8000
    [ /.*((foo|bar).css)$/, 'http://localhost:8000/$1' ],
  ],
  paths: [
    // Redirect this path to the local build folder
    [
      /^\/remote\/path\/v1.0.0/,
      'build/',
    ],
    // Use regexes to redirect multiple remotes to the local path
    [
      /^\/remote\/path\/[^/]+/,
      'build/',
    ],
  ],
  ssl: {
      key: "path/to/key",
      cert: "path/to/cert",
      passphrase: "my passphrase (optional)"
  }
};

SSL

SSL is useful if you're testing a site that uses SSL. SSL on port 443 is enabled through the SSL options on the command line, or by specifying SSL options in the config file.

Eg.

node index.js --key='serv.key' --cert='server.cert'

To generate your own SSL certificate:

openssl req  -nodes -new -x509  -keyout server.key -out server.cert

Some warnings

This is a development server. It is not intended to be run on the open Internet or without a firewall in place. Take appropriate precautions.