Simple file server to serve current directory

Question

I'm looking for a dead simple bin that I can launch up in the shell and have it serve the current directory (preferably not ..), with maybe a -p for specifying port. As it should be a development server, it should by default allow connections from localhost only, maybe with an option to specify otherwise. The simpler, the better.

Not sure which tags to use here.

You should probably post this over on http://serverfault.com/ instead. — Kyle Maxwell, Mar 10 '13 at 22:44
ruby solutions: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3108395/serve-current-directory-from-command-line — Alec, Mar 11 '13 at 01:31
Questions about "software tools commonly used by programmers" are on-topic. When you do web development (and even other types of development nowadays) you end up needing to access local files via HTTP. Perhaps this is still off-topic because it is asking for a tool recommendation, but I disagree on the closure reason given. — vossad01, Jul 25 '17 at 06:13
Vote to reopen. This was useful for me today. And the answers cover both Py2 & Py3. I needed both! — kevinarpe, Jul 27 '22 at 07:29

score 94 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 01 '20 at 16:22

94

python3 -m http.server

or if you don't want to use the default port 8000

python3 -m http.server 3333

or if you want to allow connections from localhost only

python3 -m http.server --bind 127.0.0.1

See the docs.

The equivalent Python 2 commands are

python -m SimpleHTTPServer

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 3333

There is no --bind option.

See the Python 2 docs.

edited Nov 01 '20 at 16:22

Boris Verkhovskiy

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answered Mar 10 '13 at 22:55

David Pope

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6

There is also a directory argument in case you don't want the current dir: `python3 -m http.server -d /path/to/web/dir` – Adverbly Oct 10 '19 at 18:55

score 16 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 18 '17 at 15:02

16

For Node, there's http-server:

$ npm install -g http-server
$ http-server Downloads -a localhost -p 8080
Starting up http-server, serving Downloads on port: 8080
Hit CTRL-C to stop the server

Python has:

Python 3: python -m http.server --bind 127.0.0.1 8080
Python 2: python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080

Note that Python 2 has no --bind option, so it will allow all connections (not just from localhost).

edited Oct 18 '17 at 15:02

Boris Verkhovskiy

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answered Mar 10 '13 at 22:46

Blender

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I'd like to see number of folders and directories as well – nurettin Jan 04 '19 at 12:14

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 10 '13 at 22:44

3

There is the Perl app App::HTTPThis or I have often used a tiny Mojolicious server to do this. See my blog post from a while back.

Make a file called say server.pl. Put this in it.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use Mojolicious::Lite;

use Cwd;
app->static->paths->[0] = getcwd;

any '/' => sub {
  shift->render_static('index.html');
};

app->start;

Install Mojolicious: curl get.mojolicio.us | sh and then run morbo server.pl.

Should work, and you can tweak the script if you need to.

answered Mar 10 '13 at 22:44

Joel Berger

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I don't like piping into a shell. – Reactormonk Mar 11 '13 at 00:21
Ok then install via cpan: `cpan -i Mojolicious` or via apt (though it might be a little old. This is just a quick install script :-) – Joel Berger Mar 11 '13 at 01:14
The one-liner version of that Mojolicious application would be: `perl -Mojo -E 'a->static->paths(["."]);a->start' daemon` – alexm Feb 10 '16 at 13:00
does't work. I can't see any directories. I get an error page with mojo. what am i missing ? – User9102d82 Jan 14 '19 at 00:39

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 07 '13 at 17:58

1

Using Twisted Web:

twistd --pidfile= -n web --path .  --port 8080

--pidfile= disables the PID file. Without it a twistd.pid file will be created in the current directory. You can also use --pidfile ''.

answered Nov 07 '13 at 17:58

Cristian Ciupitu

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Simple file server to serve current directory

4 Answers4

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