httpserver

command line HTTP server tool for serving up local files, similar to python -mSimpleHTTPServer

Installation

First, install Node.js. Then:

npm install -g httpserver

Usage

run httpserver on the command line to fire up a server on 0.0.0.0 port 8080.

$ httpserver
{
  "lo0": "127.0.0.1",
  "en1": "10.0.1.204"
}
server started: http://0.0.0.0:8080

See the page at http://localhost:8080.

htppserver will serve out of your current working directory.

You can pass in arguments to change the port and host, as well as environmental variables

$ httpserver 80 localhost

or

$ HTTPSERVER_PORT=80 HTTPSERVER_HOST=127.0.0.1 httpserver

example

$ httpserver
{
  "lo0": "127.0.0.1",
  "en1": "10.0.1.204"
}
server started: http://0.0.0.0:8080
127.0.0.1 - - [30/Oct/2013:18:24:38 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "curl/7.30.0"
127.0.0.1 - - [30/Oct/2013:18:24:41 -0400] "GET /test/ HTTP/1.1" 404 - "-" "curl/7.30.0"

Environmental Variables

• HTTPSERVER_HOST host to serve from, defaults to 0.0.0.0
• HTTPSERVER_PORT port to serve from, defaults to 8080
• HTTPSERVER_NO_INDEX disable reading of index.html/index.htm if found
• HTTPSERVER_NO_DIR_LISTING return 403 for directory listings

Advanced Usage

usage: httpserver [options] [port] [host]

command line HTTP server tool for serving up local files, similar to python -mSimpleHTTPServer

options
  -d, --disable-index       disable reading of index.html/index.htm if found, env HTTPSERVER_NO_INDEX
  -h, --help                print this message and exit
  -H, --host <host>         the host address on which to listen, env HTTPSERVER_HOST defaults to '0.0.0.0'
  -n, --no-indexes          return 403 for directory requests instead of a directory listing, env HTTPSERVER_NO_DIR_LISTING
  -p, --port <port>         the port on which to listen, env HTTPSERVER_PORT, defaults to 8080
  -u, --updates             check for available updates on npm
  -v, --version             print the version number and exit

Why?

There are a lot of packages in npm that do the same thing. I wanted something that closely mimicked Python's python -m SimpleHTTPServer with the following conditions.

• Easy - You shouldn't have to provide arguments to get something easy up and running. The IP addresses on the machine are also printed for you
• Configurable - Command line options and environmental variables can modify behavior at runtime
• Safe - All other packages I found online were susceptible to directory traversal. This isn't
• Simple - All code is in one file
• Parsable - GET requests to directories are returned as directory listings, add ?json for JSON
• Proper HTTP - Proper Mime types (using the Mime module) and Caching headers are returned

License

MIT