Node.js quick file server (static files over HTTP)

A good "ready-to-use tool" option could be http-server:

npm install http-server -g

To use it:

cd D:\Folder
http-server

Or, like this:

http-server D:\Folder

Check it out: https://github.com/nodeapps/http-server

connect could be what you're looking for.

Installed easily with:

npm install connect

Then the most basic static file server could be written as:

var connect = require('connect'),
    directory = '/path/to/Folder';

connect()
    .use(connect.static(directory))
    .listen(80);

console.log('Listening on port 80.');

For people wanting a server runnable from within NodeJS script:

You can use expressjs/serve-static which replaces connect.static (which is no longer available as of connect 3):

myapp.js:

var http = require('http');

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

var serve = serveStatic("./");

var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {
  var done = finalhandler(req, res);
  serve(req, res, done);
});

server.listen(8000);

and then from command line:

• $ npm install finalhandler serve-static
• $ node myapp.js

I know it's not Node, but I've used Python's SimpleHTTPServer:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer [port]

It works well and comes with Python.

If you do not want to use ready tool, you can use this code:

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

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
console.log('request starting...');

var filePath = '.' + request.url;
if (filePath == './')
    filePath = './index.html';

var extname = path.extname(filePath);
var contentType = 'text/html';
switch (extname) {
    case '.js':
        contentType = 'text/javascript';
        break;
    case '.css':
        contentType = 'text/css';
        break;
    case '.json':
        contentType = 'application/json';
        break;
    case '.png':
        contentType = 'image/png';
        break;      
    case '.jpg':
        contentType = 'image/jpg';
        break;
    case '.wav':
        contentType = 'audio/wav';
        break;
}

fs.readFile(filePath, function(error, content) {
    if (error) {
        if(error.code == 'ENOENT'){
            fs.readFile('./404.html', function(error, content) {
                response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': contentType });
                response.end(content, 'utf-8');
            });
        }
        else {
            response.writeHead(500);
            response.end('Sorry, check with the site admin for error: '+error.code+' ..\n');
            response.end(); 
        }
    }
    else {
        response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': contentType });
        response.end(content, 'utf-8');
    }
});

}).listen(8125);
console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8125/');

If you use the Express framework, this functionality comes ready to go.

To setup a simple file serving app just do this:

mkdir yourapp
cd yourapp
npm install express
node_modules/express/bin/express

It isn't on NPM, yet, but I built a simple static server on Express that also allows you to accept form submissions and email them through a transactional email service (Sendgrid for now, Mandrill coming).

https://github.com/jdr0dn3y/nodejs-StatServe

A simple Static-Server using connect

var connect = require('connect'),
  directory = __dirname,
  port = 3000;

connect()
  .use(connect.logger('dev'))
  .use(connect.static(directory))
  .listen(port);

console.log('Listening on port ' + port);

See also node.js as a simple web server

You can try serve-me

Using it is so easy:

ServeMe = require('serve-me')();
ServeMe.start(3000);

Thats all.

PD: The folder served by default is "public".

Searching in NPM registry https://npmjs.org/search?q=server, I have found static-server https://github.com/maelstrom/static-server

Ever needed to send a colleague a file, but can't be bothered emailing the 100MB beast? Wanted to run a simple example JavaScript application, but had problems with running it through the file:/// protocol? Wanted to share your media directory at a LAN without setting up Samba, or FTP, or anything else requiring you to edit configuration files? Then this file server will make your life that little bit easier.

To install the simple static stuff server, use npm:

npm install -g static-server

Then to serve a file or a directory, simply run

$ serve path/to/stuff
Serving path/to/stuff on port 8001

That could even list folder content.

Unfortunately, it couldn't serve files :)

Here's another simple web server.

https://www.npmjs.com/package/hostr

Install

npm install -g hostr

Change working director

cd myprojectfolder/

And start

hostr

For the benefit of searchers, I liked Jakub g's answer, but wanted a little error handling. Obviously it's best to handle errors properly, but this should help prevent a site stopping if an error occurs. Code below:

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

process.on('uncaughtException', function(err) {
  console.log(err);
});

var server = express();

server.use(express.static(__dirname));

var port = 10001;
server.listen(port, function() { 
    console.log('listening on port ' + port);     
    //var err = new Error('This error won't break the application...')
    //throw err
});

I use Houston at work and for personal projects, it works well for me.

https://github.com/alejandro/Houston

For dev work you can use (express 4) https://github.com/appsmatics/simple-httpserver.git