Skip to content

Instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

@willurd
Last active November 13, 2024 13:44
Show Gist options
  • Save willurd/5720255 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Save willurd/5720255 to your computer and use it in GitHub Desktop.
Big list of http static server one-liners

Each of these commands will run an ad hoc http static server in your current (or specified) directory, available at http://localhost:8000. Use this power wisely.

Discussion on reddit.

Python 2.x

$ python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

Python 3.x

$ python -m http.server 8000

Twisted (Python)

$ twistd -n web -p 8000 --path .

Or:

$ python -c 'from twisted.web.server import Site; from twisted.web.static import File; from twisted.internet import reactor; reactor.listenTCP(8000, Site(File("."))); reactor.run()'

Depends on Twisted.

Ruby

$ ruby -rwebrick -e'WEBrick::HTTPServer.new(:Port => 8000, :DocumentRoot => Dir.pwd).start'

Credit: Barking Iguana

Ruby 1.9.2+

$ ruby -run -ehttpd . -p8000

Credit: nobu

adsf (Ruby)

$ gem install adsf   # install dependency
$ adsf -p 8000

Credit: twome

No directory listings.

Sinatra (Ruby)

$ gem install sinatra   # install dependency
$ ruby -rsinatra -e'set :public_folder, "."; set :port, 8000'

No directory listings.

Perl

$ cpan HTTP::Server::Brick   # install dependency
$ perl -MHTTP::Server::Brick -e '$s=HTTP::Server::Brick->new(port=>8000); $s->mount("/"=>{path=>"."}); $s->start'

Credit: Anonymous Monk

Plack (Perl)

$ cpan Plack   # install dependency
$ plackup -MPlack::App::Directory -e 'Plack::App::Directory->new(root=>".");' -p 8000

Credit: miyagawa

Mojolicious (Perl)

$ cpan Mojolicious::Lite   # install dependency
$ perl -MMojolicious::Lite -MCwd -e 'app->static->paths->[0]=getcwd; app->start' daemon -l http://*:8000

No directory listings.

http-server (Node.js)

$ npm install -g http-server   # install dependency
$ http-server -p 8000

Note: This server does funky things with relative paths. For example, if you have a file /tests/index.html, it will load index.html if you go to /test, but will treat relative paths as if they were coming from /.

node-static (Node.js)

$ npm install -g node-static   # install dependency
$ static -p 8000

No directory listings.

PHP (>= 5.4)

$ php -S 127.0.0.1:8000

Credit: /u/prawnsalad and MattLicense

No directory listings.

Erlang

$ erl -s inets -eval 'inets:start(httpd,[{server_name,"NAME"},{document_root, "."},{server_root, "."},{port, 8000},{mime_types,[{"html","text/html"},{"htm","text/html"},{"js","text/javascript"},{"css","text/css"},{"gif","image/gif"},{"jpg","image/jpeg"},{"jpeg","image/jpeg"},{"png","image/png"}]}]).'

Credit: nivertech (with the addition of some basic mime types)

No directory listings.

busybox httpd

$ busybox httpd -f -p 8000

Credit: lvm

webfs

$ webfsd -F -p 8000

Depends on webfs.

IIS Express

C:\> "C:\Program Files (x86)\IIS Express\iisexpress.exe" /path:C:\MyWeb /port:8000

Depends on IIS Express.

Credit: /u/fjantomen

No directory listings. /path must be an absolute path.

Meta

If you have any suggestions, drop them in the comments below or on the reddit discussion. To get on this list, a solution must:

  1. serve static files using your current directory (or a specified directory) as the server root,
  2. be able to be run with a single, one line command (dependencies are fine if they're a one-time thing),
  3. serve basic file types (html, css, js, images) with proper mime types,
  4. require no configuration (from files or otherwise) beyond the command itself (no framework-specific servers, etc)
  5. must run, or have a mode where it can run, in the foreground (i.e. no daemons)
@prestancedesign
Copy link

Clojure (without leiningen tool)

clj -Sdeps '{:deps {nasus {:mvn/version "0.1.5"}}}' -m http.server

Specify custom port:
clj -Sdeps '{:deps {nasus {:mvn/version "0.1.5"}}}' -m http.server 8001

It's recommended to add an alias in clojure config file after that the command will be shorter:
clj -A:http.server

@libert-xyz
Copy link

libert-xyz commented Dec 4, 2019

A star for you

@gianpaolof
Copy link

@isurfer21
Copy link

A blazing fast lightweight command-line based micro webserver https://isurfer21.github.io/Suxm/

@jasonrobot
Copy link

crystal eval 'require "http/server"; HTTP::Server.new(8000, HTTP::StaticFileHandler.new(".")).listen'

Update to the Crystal version - the Server constructor changed, and needs to be bound to a TCP port separately. For 0.32.0:
crystal eval 'require "http/server"; server = HTTP::Server.new(HTTP::StaticFileHandler.new(".")); server.bind_tcp(8080); server.listen'

@travispaul
Copy link

travispaul commented Jan 18, 2020

Bozohttpd is an minimalist webserver with no config file, its main feature is the lack of features.

It ships with NetBSD. To run in the foreground and serve files on port 8080 in the current directory:

/usr/libexec/httpd -I 8080 -f -b -X .

You can also get it from Pkgsrc and possibly other package managers but will need to invoke it as "bozohttpd":
/usr/pkg/libexec/bozohttpd -I 8080 -f -b -X .

@danielbarry
Copy link

Java 1.7+

NOTE: Tested in Linux with OpenJDK.

You can use the following in a directory of your choosing:

echo -e 'import java.net.*;import java.nio.file.*;public class M{public static void main(String[] args)throws Exception{byte[]b=new byte[16777215];ServerSocket s=new ServerSocket(3333);for(;;)try{Socket c=s.accept();c.getInputStream().read(b);c.getOutputStream().write(("HTTP/1.1 200 OK\\r\\n\\r\\n"+new String(Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(new String(b).split(" ")[1].substring(1))))).getBytes());c.getOutputStream().flush();c.close();}catch(Exception e){}}}'>M.java;javac M.java;java M

Then use your browser to access 127.0.0.1:3333/<your_file>.

Configuration

  • Port can be changed by editing 3333
  • Max file size can be changed by editing 16777215 (must be larger than the largest expected client header and file to be handled, limited by max size of Java integer)

Known Limitations

  • Only one client at time can serviced
  • Expects a well formed header response
  • Some browsers could get very upset with the malformed response

Likely Limitations

@jsdw
Copy link

jsdw commented Jan 18, 2020

Here's a Rust based static file server: https://github.com/jsdw/weave

Basic usage:

weave 8080 to ./path/to/files

To install the single binary on Linux, run:
curl -L https://github.com/jsdw/weave/releases/download/v0.4.1/weave-v0.4.1-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz | tar -xz

@vwochnik
Copy link

For Golang

go get github.com/vwochnik/gost

And then

gost

@michaelmior
Copy link

Rust has http:

Also miniserve!

@madacol
Copy link

madacol commented Jan 18, 2020

sudo apt-get install servefile
servefile -p 8000 -l .

@pkieltyka
Copy link

pkieltyka commented Jan 18, 2020

here's another one..

$ go get github.com/goware/webify
$ webify

output:

================================================================================
Serving:  /home/peter
URL:      http://0.0.0.0:3000
Cache:    off
================================================================================

FYI, -help will show flags like -dir, -port, -host, -cache. The default -dir flag is to serve current working directory

@laurent22
Copy link

laurent22 commented Jan 18, 2020

There's two versions for Node but both need an extra dependency.

Here's a one-liner with no dependency:

node --eval "var fs = require('fs'), http = require('http'); http.createServer(function (req, res) { fs.readFile(__dirname + req.url, function (err,data) { if (err) { res.writeHead(404); res.end(JSON.stringify(err)); return;}res.writeHead(200);res.end(data); });}).listen(8000);"

@tyingq
Copy link

tyingq commented Jan 18, 2020

One with GNU awk

gawk '@load"filefuncs";@load"readfile";func send(s,e,d,t,b){print"HTTP/1.0 "s" "e|&S;print"Content-Length: "b|&S;print"Content-Type: "t|&S;print d|&S;close(S);}func cf(x){split(x,y,"/");for(z in y){print "FOUND "y[z];if(y[z]==".."){return 0;}}return 1;}func mt(f){c="file -b --mime-type "f;r="";while((c|getline z)>0){r=r z;}close(c);return r;}BEGIN{if(ARGV[1]!=""){if(chdir(ARGV[1])){print "Failed to chdir to "ARGV[1];exit;}ARGC=1;}RS=ORS="\r\n";while(1){S="/inet/tcp/8080/0/0";while((S|&getline l)>0){split(l,f," ");if(f[1]=="GET"){p=substr(f[2],2)}if(p==""){p="index.html"}stat(p,s);if(cf(p)&&s["type"]=="file"){m=mt(p);o=readfile(p);send(200,"OK",o,m,s["size"]);break;}n="<html>Not Found</html>";send(404,"Not Found",n,"text/html"RS,length(n));break;}}}'

@dbushong
Copy link

dbushong commented Jan 18, 2020

For the node versions that have dependencies, you can do it without (explicitly) installing the dep:

$ npx node-static -p 8000

that example doesn't require node-static to be installed first - it will download it, install it in a tmpdir, and run it. npx ships with node since.... 8.16.0, maybe?

@3rd
Copy link

3rd commented Jan 18, 2020

npx serve - nodejs, with directory listing

@telmich
Copy link

telmich commented Jan 18, 2020

You all are aware that the rules above also apply to just using nginx, apache or lighttpd?

@numanturle
Copy link

while : ; do ( echo -ne "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n" ; cat index.html; ) | nc -l -p 8080 ; done

lol

@trzecieu
Copy link

Mercurial:

hg serve

@sjoonk
Copy link

sjoonk commented Jan 19, 2020

In WordPress /w WP-CLI:

wp server

@denisgolius
Copy link

denisgolius commented Jan 20, 2020

python -m aiohttp.web -H localhost -P 8080 package.module:init_func

https://docs.aiohttp.org/en/stable/web_quickstart.html

@jdebp
Copy link

jdebp commented Jan 20, 2020

UCSPI and publicfile

These serve up the ./127.0.0.1/ or ./::1/ subdirectory, because that is how publicfile does virtual hosting. Make those a symbolic link to . to make the current directory the one served. Also note that Bernstein publicfile does an unconditional chroot() and thus requires superuser privileges. One can substitute other UCSPI server programs for it, that do not.

For GOPHER+ and FTP instead, similarly substitute djbwares's gopherd or Daniel J. Bernstein's ftpd.

UCSPI-TCP and publicfile, IP version 4

tcpserver -H -R -P 127.0.0.1 8000 httpd .
tcpserver 127.0.0.1 8000 httpd .
tcp-socket-listen 127.0.0.1 8000 tcp-socket-accept httpd .
s6-tcpserver4 127.0.0.1 8000 httpd .
tcpsvd 127.0.0.1 8000 httpd .

UCSPI-SSL and publicfile

sslserver -H -R -P ::1 8000 httpd .

UCSPI-TCP and publicfile, IP version 6

tcpserver -H -R -P ::1 8000 httpd .
tcp-socket-listen ::1 8000 tcp-socket-accept httpd .
  • or for both IPv4 and IPv6:
tcp-socket-listen --systemd-compatibility ::1 8000 tcp-socket-listen --systemd-compatibility 127.0.0.1 8000 tcp-socket-accept httpd .
s6-tcpserver6 ::1 8000 httpd .

@vandot
Copy link

vandot commented Jan 26, 2020

It still oneliner :)
golang
echo 'package main\nimport "net/http"\nfunc main() {fs := http.FileServer(http.Dir("."))\nhttp.Handle("/", fs)\nhttp.ListenAndServe(":8000", nil)}' > main.go; go run main.go; rm main.go

@denisgolius
Copy link

./asmttpd ./web_root 8080

https://github.com/nemasu/asmttpd

@herrgahr
Copy link

herrgahr commented Feb 5, 2020

I'm kinda surprised that websocketd hasn't been mentioned so far. It can serve static directories plus lots of awesome on top :)

@herrgahr
Copy link

herrgahr commented Feb 5, 2020

D'oh, maybe I should've added the actual one-liner:

websocketd --staticdir=. --port=8080 

@Spyryto
Copy link

Spyryto commented Feb 19, 2020

newLISP

newlisp -http -d 8080 -w /usr/home/www/httpdocs &

@iSignal
Copy link

iSignal commented Feb 20, 2020

twistd seems to have changed to twistd -n web --port tcp:port=8000 --path .

@unknownterritory
Copy link

Browser-sync:

$ npm install -g browser-sync   # install dependency
$ browser-sync start -s -f . --no-notify --port 8000
  • Automatically opens a new tab on the browser and serves the website.
  • Watches for changes in any file on the directory from which the command was issued and live-reloads the website.
  • Provides internal and external urls so other devices in the same network can check the website as well.
  • Provides internal and external console urls for further configuration of the server.
  • -s for --server
  • -f for --files, file paths to watch.
  • --no-notify entirely optional. It just disables the little browser-sync pop-ups.

@aesyondu
Copy link

aesyondu commented Mar 7, 2020

Is there a one liner that adds the header Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *

EDIT: Found this for http-server and browser-sync, still needs npm install though:

npm install -g http-server
http-server static_files/ --port 9000 --cors

npm install -g browser-sync
browser-sync start --serveStatic static_files/ --no-open --server --port 9001 --cors

tags: same-origin, cross-origin

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment