Using node.js as a simple web server

Question

I want to run a very simple HTTP server. Every GET request to example.com should get index.html served to it but as a regular HTML page (i.e., same

Answer 1

Edit:

Node.js sample app Node Chat has the functionality you want.
In it's README.textfile
3. Step is what you are looking for.

step1

• create a server that responds with hello world on port 8002

step2

• create an index.html and serve it

step3

• introduce util.js
• change the logic so that any static file is served
• show 404 in case no file is found

step4

• add jquery-1.4.2.js
• add client.js
• change index.html to prompt user for nickname

Here is the server.js

Here is the util.js

Answer 2

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
var index = fs.readFileSync('index.html');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'html'});
res.end(index);
}).listen(9615);

//Just Change The CONTENT TYPE to 'html'

Answer 3

You can just type those in your shell

npx serve

Repo: https://github.com/zeit/serve.

Answer 4

The simpler version which I've came across is as following. For education purposes, it is best, because it does not use any abstract libraries.

var http = require('http'),
url = require('url'),
path = require('path'),
fs = require('fs');

var mimeTypes = {
  "html": "text/html",
  "mp3":"audio/mpeg",
  "mp4":"video/mp4",
  "jpeg": "image/jpeg",
  "jpg": "image/jpeg",
  "png": "image/png",
  "js": "text/javascript",
  "css": "text/css"};

http.createServer(function(req, res) {
    var uri = url.parse(req.url).pathname;
    var filename = path.join(process.cwd(), uri);
    fs.exists(filename, function(exists) {
        if(!exists) {
            console.log("not exists: " + filename);
            res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
            res.write('404 Not Found\n');
            res.end();
            return;
        }
        var mimeType = mimeTypes[path.extname(filename).split(".")[1]];
        res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type':mimeType});

        var fileStream = fs.createReadStream(filename);
        fileStream.pipe(res);

    }); //end path.exists
}).listen(1337);

Now go to browser and open following:

http://127.0.0.1/image.jpg

Here image.jpg should be in same directory as this file. Hope this helps someone :)

Answer 5

Basically copying the accepted answer, but avoiding creating a js file.

$ node
> var connect = require('connect'); connect().use(static('.')).listen(8000);

Found it very convinient.

Update

As of latest version of Express, serve-static has become a separate middleware. Use this to serve:

require('http').createServer(require('serve-static')('.')).listen(3000)

Install serve-static first.

Answer 6

This is basically an updated version of the accepted answer for connect version 3:

var connect = require('connect');
var serveStatic = require('serve-static');

var app = connect();

app.use(serveStatic(__dirname, {'index': ['index.html']}));
app.listen(3000);

I also added a default option so that index.html is served as a default.