node-http-server

Node http server

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Simple to use stand alone node HTTP Server you can spin up from node apps, bash scripts, the commandline, C or python apps etc.

npm install node-http-server

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Defaults

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currently modifiable via any interface, commandline, bash, node etc.

port    : 8080
root    : Current Working Directory (where you execute the command from)
domain  : localhost
index   : index.html
verbose : false
noCache : true

port the port on which the server should run root the absolute location to the root dir for the public file system domain the domain which this server applies to - this is not yet implemented index the default file to look for in a dir. if not found a 404 will be displayed verbose should the server display detailed info about what it is doing noCache should the server prevent caching

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currently modifiable via node

contentType :   {
                    html    : 'text/html',
                    css     : 'text/css',
                    js      : 'text/javascript',
                    json    : 'application/json',
                    txt     : 'text/plain',
                    jpeg    : 'image/jpeg',
                    jpg     : 'image/jpeg',
                    png     : 'image/png',
                    gif     : 'image/gif',
                    ico     : 'image/x-icon',
                    appcache: 'text/cache-manifest'
                }

restrictedType: {}

errors  :   {
                headers : {
                    'Content-Type' : 'text/plain'
                },
                404: '404 MIA',
                415: '415 File type not supported',
                403: '403 Access Denied',
                500: '500 {{err}}'
            }

contentType mapping of file extension to header content type restrictedType extensions to which external access will be denied errors error headers and error strings, these can be anything you like from html to text etc. just make sure they all can use the same headers. The 500 error will replace {{err}} in the specified value with the actual error message from the server.

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Commandline / bash use

launch is an argument that specifies to launch the server now with the provided arguments and defaults

node ~/git/node-http-server/server/http.js root=~/myApp/ port=9999 launch=now

you can specify any of the variables frpom the currently modifiable via any interface, commandline, bash, node etc. section above. The order does not matter.

node ~/git/node-http-server/server/http.js root=~/myApp/ port=8888 verbose=true launch=now

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node app use

var server=require('../server/http.js');

server has 2 methods, deploy and configTemplate

server.configTemplate will generate a complete config file based off of the default values and arguments passed in when launching the app. DO NOT USE launch=now as an argument for a node app. This will result in launching 2 servers, the one you specify with the arguments passed and then the one the node app launches too.

server.deploy will accept any config params and merge them with a fresh configTemplate, so passing a modified config based off of server.configTemplate() will result in using only the values from the modified config passed when deploying as it will override all of the defaults. The passed config object only merges to one level deep so if you pass a multi level object like contentTypes it will overwrite the default config with what you sent for that object rather than merging your object with the default.

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node examples

can be found in the examples folder

basic

this app could be launched as
node basicApp.js verbose=true
to force verbose logging. This can be helpful if you have many servers in a single app and want them all to be verbose right now for debugging or testing purposes.

var server=require('../server/http.js');

console.log(server);

server.deploy(
    {
        port:8000,
        root:'~/myApp/'
    }
); 

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verbose

var server=require('../server/http.js');

console.log(server);

server.deploy(
    {
        verbose:true,
        port:8001,
        root:'~/myApp/'
    }
);

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advanced

var server=require('../server/http.js');

console.log(server);

var config=server.configTemplate();
config.errors['404']    = 'These are not the files you are looking for...';
config.contentType.mp4  = 'video/mp4';
config.port             = 8005;
config.verbose          = true;
config.root             = '~/myApp/'

server.deploy(config);

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Starting with forever

It is helpful especially when running multiple servers to label them with --uid for easy to remember process names

when starting the same server many times, like every time the system boots you will want to append to the same log file so use -a. Without -a forever will throw an error stating that the log file for the --uid already exists.

forever --uid nodeServer -a start ~/git/node-http-server/server/http.js root=~/myApp/ port=9999 launch=now

This can be set as a .profile command or a .bash_rc command as well if you want to launch the server every time the computer boots up.