Big list of http static server one-liners

web-servers.md

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)

C99

klange/cgiserver

websocat can serve specific explicit list of files on explicit URLs with explicit Content-Types.

websocat -s 1234 -F /index.html:text/html:./index.html -F /script.js:text/javascript:/path/to/thescript.js

There is no ability to automatically include more files based on existence on the filesystem, but sometimes 100% explicit approach may be beneficial.

docker run --rm --volume "$(pwd):/www:ro" --publish 80:80 docker.io/p3terx/darkhttpd:1.13 /www

docker image ls --format 'table {{.Repository}}:{{.Tag}}\t{{.Size}}' p3terx/darkhttpd:1.13
REPOSITORY:TAG          SIZE
p3terx/darkhttpd:1.13   91.7kB

---

docker run --rm --volume "$(pwd):/usr/share/nginx/html:ro" --publish 80:80 docker.io/library/nginx:1.20.0-alpine

docker image ls --format 'table {{.Repository}}:{{.Tag}}\t{{.Size}}' nginx:1.20.0-alpine
REPOSITORY:TAG        SIZE
nginx:1.20.0-alpine   22.6MB

Lwan can be used as an one-liner web server, too: lwan -r /path/to/files/to/serve.

Surprised that the once most universal thttpd wasn't even mentioned given how simple and convenient it is:

$ thttpd
$ netstat -ltnp | grep thttpd
tcp6       0      0 :::8080                 :::*                    LISTEN      25130/thttpd        

A listening socket is exactly the type of thing I wouldn't want to see in a web browser!

Node serve https://www.npmjs.com/package/serve much more professional that the other listed node.js options at this time.

Note that npm doesn't require you to install the package, so a true one-liner would be:

npx serve  --listen 8000
npx node-static -p 8000
npx http-server -p 8000

Thanks for the page!

@nilslindemann:

@wtarreau why?

Browsers' security is extremely brittle, and it's already extremely hard for them to protect themselves from abuses by rogue sites and fake ads or limiting the impact of poorly written plugins that always risk to be used to steal user information. By opening them to the outside world using an incoming connection, you're suddenly bypassing a lot of the isolation efforts made in the browser by immediately exposing the process to the outside world. You just need a small bug in the server or a small overlook in the isolation between the server and the rest of the browser and your browser's sensitive info such as passwords, cookies, certificates, or history can immediately leak, or some dummy certs and cookies, or trojans can be inserted.

For a ColdFusion / CFML powered web server in the current directory you can use commandbox:

box server start port=8123

The box binary (dependency) can be installed by running brew install commandbox or via several other methods: https://commandbox.ortusbooks.com/setup/installation

Winstone, a wrapper around Jetty. Install:

mvn dependency:get -Dartifact=org.jenkins-ci:winstone:5.20 -DremoteRepositories=https://repo.jenkins-ci.org/public/

and run

java -jar ~/.m2/repository/org/jenkins-ci/winstone/5.20/winstone-5.20.jar --webroot=.

Another option in go is goshs

Just found nws which supports basepath:

If you want all requests to resolve to a base path (i.e. http://localhost:3030/basepath) without having to place all files into a src/basepath sub-directory, use the -b flag:

nws -b basepath

In Java 18:

jwebserver -p 8080

When running in docker compose along with nominatim-docker

FROM nginx:1.21-alpine

RUN wget https://github.com/osm-search/nominatim-ui/releases/download/v3.2.4/nominatim-ui-3.2.4.tar.gz &&\
    tar -xvf nominatim-ui-3.2.4.tar.gz --strip-components=1 &&\
    cp -r dist/* /usr/share/nginx/html/ &&\
    sed -i 's/http:\/\/localhost\/nominatim\//http:\/\/nominatim:8080\//g' /usr/share/nginx/html/config.defaults.js

EXPOSE 80

Haskell, with just Cabal:

echo 'WaiAppStatic.CmdLine.runCommandLine (const id)' | cabal repl -b wai-app-static

It's a bit verbose, but on the plus side you're in a REPL, so it's easy to modify things.

Prompted by a question on Reddit.

Nix alternative

Faster reloads, but relies on my repo, which may not be ideal if one would prefer something more centralised.

nix run github:georgefst/nix-haskell-static-http

D, with package 'serve':

dub run serve
dub run serve -- path/to/index.html

https://code.dlang.org/packages/serve

for SPA static workload and without dependencies:
npx servor <root> <fallback> <port>
https://www.npmjs.com/package/servor

Failed to install HTTP::Server::Brick in an Alpine container:

Unimplemented: POSIX::tmpnam(): use File::Temp instead at t/serving.t line 87.

And it might be abandoned.

Anyone know how to do it with elixir?

https://gist.github.com/willurd/5720255?permalink_comment_id=4430075#gistcomment-4430075
Anyone know how to do it with elixir?

@SBoteroP You can do it in the following way:
https://gist.github.com/willurd/5720255?permalink_comment_id=2361144#gistcomment-2361144

Another option in go is goshs

For the Go equivalent you could use http.FileServer like https://gist.github.com/paulmach/7271283 . Can also do tls just by changing to ListenAndServeTLS

Submitted for your approval, a NodeJS solution in 123 chars. ⛳

r=require;r("http").createServer((i,o)=>r("stream").pipeline(r("fs").createReadStream(i.url.slice(1)),o,_=>_)).listen(8080)

Run it in bash to serve files relative to that directory, and also any file on your computer if given an absolute path. 😱

node -e 'r=require;r("http").createServer((i,o)=>r("stream").pipeline(r("fs").createReadStream(i.url.slice(1)),o,e=>console.log(i.url,e))).listen(8080)'

I prefer the 153-char version that logs out each file request and doesn't serve outside the command's directory. 🪵

r=require;r("http").createServer((i,o)=>r("stream").pipeline(r("fs").createReadStream(r("path").join(".",i.url)),o,e=>console.log(i.url,e))).listen(8080)

Here's that one-liner unobfuscated, deminimized, and explained. 🧑‍🏫

require("http").createServer((request, response) => {
  require("stream").pipeline( // Pipes from each stream to the next ending in a callback to handle errors
    require("fs").createReadStream( // Reads the file at the specified path.
      require("path").join(".", request.url) // Forces the file path to start with this directory,
    ),                                       // so no absolute paths or ../ing upward.
    response, // This is a writable stream so the file read stream pipes into the server response stream.
    (error, value) => { console.log(request.url, error); } // This callback handles the error & we use it
  )                                                        // here to log the filepath.
).listen(8080); // Actually starts the server listening on this port.

(Source: https://gist.github.com/mLuby/6cecf50649c543b6c89f3976cf203058)

Here's a crystal oneliner:

crystal eval 'require "http/server"; server = HTTP::Server.new( [HTTP::LogHandler.new, HTTP::StaticFileHandler.new("./")] ); server.bind_tcp "127.0.0.1", 8080; server.listen'

:D

python3 -m http.server -d web 8000

for when you want to host a specific directory in one line

go run github.com/eliben/static-server@latest

or

echo 'package main; import ("net/http"); func main() {fs := http.FileServer(http.Dir(".")); http.Handle("/", fs); println("Listening on http://localhost:8000"); http.ListenAndServe(":8000", nil)}' > main.go; go run main.go; rm main.go

`npx serve .`Sent from my iPhoneOn 16 Sep 2023, at 18:35, Kaiser Dandangi ***@***.***> wrote:Re: ***@***.*** commented on this gist.go run ***@***.*** 'package main; import ("net/http"); func main() {fs := http.FileServer(http.Dir(".")); http.Handle("/", fs); println("Listening on http://localhost:8000"); http.ListenAndServe(":8000", nil)}' > main.go; go run main.go; rm main.go—Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub or unsubscribe.You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread.Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS or Android.                                                           

Limiting request to a certain interface (eg.: do not allow request from the network)

python -m http.server --bind 127.0.0.1

Ruby 3.0+ does not include webrick by default, you will have to gem install webrick before you can use any of the Ruby one-liners
source: https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/news/2020/12/25/ruby-3-0-0-released/

The following libraries are no longer bundled gems or standard libraries. Install the corresponding gems to use these features.

• sdbm
• webrick
• net-telnet
• xmlrpc

@danini-the-panini is there no web server replacement in the standard library?

@sancarn unfortunately not. you can see what's in the standard library of each Ruby version here: https://stdgems.org/.
net-http is only a client. Since the webrick removal there is no built-in web server included with ruby.