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http-server
Advanced tools
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.
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
Similar to http-server, serve is a static file serving and directory listing package. It is also simple to use but comes with a few more features like clean URLs and single-page application (SPA) support.
Lite-server is a lightweight development only node server that serves a web app, opens it in the browser, and refreshes when html or javascript files change. It is built on top of BrowserSync and is more tailored towards serving SPAs.
Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications. Unlike http-server, Express requires more setup but is much more powerful and extensible.
http-server
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.
Using npx
you can run the script without installing it first:
npx http-server [path] [options]
npm
npm install --global http-server
This will install http-server
globally so that it may be run from the command line anywhere.
brew install http-server
npm
package:npm install http-server
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
Note: Caching is on by default. Add -c-1
as an option to disable caching.
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 ./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. If brotli is also enabled, it will try to serve brotli first. | false |
-b or --brotli | When enabled it will serve ./public/some-file.js.br in place of ./public/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. |
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.To implement a catch-all redirect, use the index page itself as the proxy with:
http-server --proxy http://localhost:8080?
Note the ?
at the end of the proxy URL. Thanks to @houston3 for this clever hack!
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.
http-server -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 http-server, serving ./ through https
http-server 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
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 ./public
folder for demo content.
FAQs
A simple zero-configuration command-line http server
The npm package http-server receives a total of 2,514,292 weekly downloads. As such, http-server popularity was classified as popular.
We found that http-server demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 3 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
Did you know?
Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.
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