http-server

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.

Installation

Running on-demand

Using npx you can run the script without installing it first:

npx http-server [path] [options]

Globally via npm

npm install --global http-server

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

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.

Note: Caching is on by default. Add -c-1 as an option to disable caching.

Available Options

http-server - npm (npmjs.com)

Magic Files

• 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.

Catch-all redirect

To implement a catch-all redirect, use the index page itself as the proxy with:

http-server --proxy http://localhost:8080?

TLS/SSL

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

References

http-server - npm (npmjs.com)