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

This is one of the fastest solutions i use to quickly see web pages

sudo npm install ripple-emulator -g

From then on just enter the directory of your html files and run

ripple emulate

then change the device to Nexus 7 landscape.

Answer 2

You don't need express. You don't need connect. Node.js does http NATIVELY. All you need to do is return a file dependent on the request:

var http = require('http')
var url = require('url')
var fs = require('fs')

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
    var requestUrl = url.parse(request.url)    
    response.writeHead(200)
    fs.createReadStream(requestUrl.pathname).pipe(response)  // do NOT use fs's sync methods ANYWHERE on production (e.g readFileSync) 
}).listen(9615)    

A more full example that ensures requests can't access files underneath a base-directory, and does proper error handling:

var http = require('http')
var url = require('url')
var fs = require('fs')
var path = require('path')
var baseDirectory = __dirname   // or whatever base directory you want

var port = 9615

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
    try {
        var requestUrl = url.parse(request.url)

        // need to use path.normalize so people can't access directories underneath baseDirectory
        var fsPath = baseDirectory+path.normalize(requestUrl.pathname)

        var fileStream = fs.createReadStream(fsPath)
        fileStream.pipe(response)
        fileStream.on('open', function() {
             response.writeHead(200)
        })
        fileStream.on('error',function(e) {
             response.writeHead(404)     // assume the file doesn't exist
             response.end()
        })
   } catch(e) {
        response.writeHead(500)
        response.end()     // end the response so browsers don't hang
        console.log(e.stack)
   }
}).listen(port)

console.log("listening on port "+port)

Answer 3

The fast way:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use('/', express.static(__dirname + '/../public')); // ← adjust
app.listen(3000, function() { console.log('listening'); });

Your way:

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    console.dir(req.url);

    // will get you  '/' or 'index.html' or 'css/styles.css' ...
    // • you need to isolate extension
    // • have a small mimetype lookup array/object
    // • only there and then reading the file
    // •  delivering it after setting the right content type

    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});

    res.end('ok');
}).listen(3001);

Answer 4

Crazy amount of complicated answers here. If you don't intend to process nodeJS files/database but just want to serve static html/css/js/images as your question suggest then simply install the pushstate-server module or similar;

Here's a "one liner" that will create and launch a mini site. Simply paste that entire block in your terminal in the appropriate directory.

mkdir mysite; \
cd mysite; \
npm install pushstate-server --save; \
mkdir app; \
touch app/index.html; \
echo '<h1>Hello World</h1>' > app/index.html; \
touch server.js; \
echo "var server = require('pushstate-server');server.start({ port: 3000, directory: './app' });" > server.js; \
node server.js

Open browser and go to http://localhost:3000. Done.

The server will use the app dir as the root to serve files from. To add additional assets just place them inside that directory.

Answer 5

local-web-server is definitely worth a look! Here's an excerpt from the readme:

local-web-server

A lean, modular web server for rapid full-stack development.

• Supports HTTP, HTTPS and HTTP2.
• Small and 100% personalisable. Load and use only the behaviour required by your project.
• Attach a custom view to personalise how activity is visualised.
• Programmatic and command-line interfaces.

Use this tool to:

• Build any type of front-end web application (static, dynamic, Single Page App, Progessive Web App, React etc).
• Prototype a back-end service (REST API, microservice, websocket, Server Sent Events service etc).
• Monitor activity, analyse performance, experiment with caching strategy etc.

Local-web-server is a distribution of lws bundled with a "starter pack" of useful middleware.

Synopsis

This package installs the ws command-line tool (take a look at the usage guide).

Static web site

Running ws without any arguments will host the current directory as a static web site. Navigating to the server will render a directory listing or your index.html, if that file exists.

$ ws
Listening on http://mbp.local:8000, http://127.0.0.1:8000, http://192.168.0.100:8000

Static files tutorial.

This clip demonstrates static hosting plus a couple of log output formats - dev and stats.

Single Page Application

Serving a Single Page Application (an app with client-side routing, e.g. a React or Angular app) is as trivial as specifying the name of your single page:

$ ws --spa index.html

With a static site, requests for typical SPA paths (e.g. /user/1, /login) would return 404 Not Found as a file at that location does not exist. However, by marking index.html as the SPA you create this rule:

If a static file is requested (e.g. /css/style.css) then serve it, if not (e.g. /login) then serve the specified SPA and handle the route client-side.

SPA tutorial.

URL rewriting and proxied requests

Another common use case is to forward certain requests to a remote server.

The following command proxies blog post requests from any path beginning with /posts/ to https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/. For example, a request for /posts/1 would be proxied to https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1.

$ ws --rewrite '/posts/(.*) -> https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/$1'

Rewrite tutorial.

This clip demonstrates the above plus use of --static.extensions to specify a default file extension and --verbose to monitor activity.

HTTPS and HTTP2

For HTTPS or HTTP2, pass the --https or --http2 flags respectively. See the wiki for further configuration options and a guide on how to get the "green padlock" in your browser.

$ lws --http2
Listening at https://mba4.local:8000, https://127.0.0.1:8000, https://192.168.0.200:8000

Answer 6

Rather than dealing with a switch statement, I think it's neater to lookup the content type from a dictionary:

var contentTypesByExtension = {
    'html': "text/html",
    'js':   "text/javascript"
};

...

    var contentType = contentTypesByExtension[fileExtension] || 'text/plain';