The http-server npm package is a simple, zero-configuration command-line 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.

What are http-server's main functionalities?

Serving static files

This command serves the current directory at localhost:8080. It can be used to view static websites or any static files.

http-server -p 8080

Customizable port

This command serves the current directory on a specified port, in this case, port 3000.

http-server -p 3000

Specify the directory to serve

This command serves the specified directory instead of the current directory.

http-server /path/to/directory

HTTPS support

This command serves the current directory over HTTPS using the specified certificate and key files.

http-server --ssl --cert path/to/cert.pem --key path/to/key.pem

Enable CORS

This command serves files with CORS enabled, allowing resources to be requested from another domain.

http-server -c-1 --cors

Other packages similar to http-server

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http-server: a command-line http server

http-server is a simple, zero-configuration command-line 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.

Installing globally:

Installation via npm:

 npm install http-server -g

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

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

Available Options:

-p Port to use (defaults to 8080)

-a Address to use (defaults to 0.0.0.0)

-d Show directory listings (defaults to 'True')

-i Display autoIndex (defaults to 'True')

-g or --gzip When enabled (defaults to 'False') 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.

-e or --ext Default file extension if none supplied (defaults to 'html')

-s or --silent Suppress log messages from output

--cors Enable CORS via the Access-Control-Allow-Origin header

-o Open browser window after starting the server

-c Set cache time (in seconds) for cache-control max-age header, e.g. -c10 for 10 seconds (defaults to '3600'). To disable caching, use -c-1.

-U or --utc Use UTC time format in log messages.

-P or --proxy Proxies all requests which can't be resolved locally to the given url. e.g.: -P http://someurl.com

-S or --ssl Enable https.

-C or --cert Path to ssl cert file (default: cert.pem).

-K or --key Path to ssl key file (default: key.pem).

-r or --robots Provide a /robots.txt (whose content defaults to 'User-agent: *\nDisallow: /')

-h or --help Print this list and exit.

Development

Checkout this repository locally, then:

$ npm i
$ node bin/http-server

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.

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Last updated on 01 May 2017

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