User:Tsu2/NodeJs http servers

This page documents how to instantiate web servers using NodeJS. Most scripting languages support invoking a small webserver for temporary tasks like Developing code, testing and staging websites and supporting Static Sites in general.

Of course, everything on this page assumes you have installed NodeJS already

Before Anything Else

If you haven't already done so, update your node package management "npm." The version installed from anywhere other than the official NodeJS repos is likely old

npm i npm

The HTTP Servers

1. http-server

Install

npm http-server

Navigate to your website root and run

cd website_root
http-server

By default, your website should be available at http://localhost:4000

2. connect and serve-static

Install

npm install connect serve-static

Create your server.js configuration file in an easily accessible location. Running the following in a console or script should create your file in your home directory root

cat > ~/server.js << EOL
var connect = require('connect');
var serveStatic = require('serve-static');
connect().use(serveStatic(__dirname)).listen(8080, function(){
    console.log('Server running on 8080...');
});
EOL

Now you can reference server.js from the root of any website code, for example

cd website_root
node ~/server.js

By default, your website should be available at http://localhost:8080

Additional

The above and similar node web servers are generally unusable "as-is" in a Production setting, their defaults are generally minimal and lightweight, suitable for on-the-fly invoking for a single or few clients, and in a protected network. If you want to deploy for Production use, NGINX is highly advisable but you can also tweak the above node servers for better performance and security. One article that describes some of these tweaks is at the following

http://stackabuse.com/node-http-servers-for-static-file-serving/