Quickly Serving Local Content

November 04, 2020

Sometimes you need to serve some local static content over HTTP/HTTPS for testing SPAs or other things.

Python Module

I’ve used the python SimpleHTTPServer module

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000

However, if you’re on Windows or want to enable SSL, then this Python module isn’t the ideal solution.

Dotnet Serve

I recently stumbled across the dotnet-serve tool which is a dotnet cli global tool. It provides similar basic functionality to the Python module, however it also allows you to do a couple of extra things like returning headers, enabling HTTPS, and enabling content compression.

If you’re a dotnet developer, this is handy because it just adds another tool to the default dotnet cli command.

Installation

dotnet tool install --global dotnet-serve

dotnet serve --help

dotnet-serve 1.7.137+e153893585e7ccb707ba0d532b54288c49e59bb8

A simple command-line HTTP server

Usage: dotnet serve [options]

Options:
  --version                            Show version information
  -d|--directory <DIR>                 The root directory to serve. [Current directory]
  -o|--open-browser                    Open a web browser when the server starts. [false]
  -p|--port <PORT>                     Port to use [8080]. Use 0 for a dynamic port.
  -a|--address <ADDRESS>               Address to use [127.0.0.1]
  --path-base <PATH>                   The base URL path of postpended to the site url.
  --default-extensions[:<EXTENSIONS>]  A comma-delimited list of extensions to use when no
                                       extension is provided in the URL. [.html,.htm]
  -q|--quiet                           Show less console output.
  -v|--verbose                         Show more console output.
  -h|--headers <HEADER_AND_VALUE>      A header to return with all file/directory
                                       responses. e.g. -h "X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block"
  -S|--tls                             Enable TLS (HTTPS)
  --cert                               A PEM encoded certificate file to use for HTTPS
                                       connections.
                                       Defaults to file in current directory named
                                       'cert.pem'
  --key                                A PEM encoded private key to use for HTTPS
                                       connections.
                                       Defaults to file in current directory named
                                       'private.key'
  --pfx                                A PKCS#12 certificate file to use for HTTPS
                                       connections.
                                       Defaults to file in current directory named
                                       'cert.pfx'
  --pfx-pwd                            The password to open the certificate file.
                                       (Optional)
  -m|--mime <MAPPING>                  Add a mapping from file extension to MIME type.
                                       Empty MIME removes a mapping.
                                       Expected format is <EXT>=<MIME>.
  -z|--gzip                            Enable gzip compression
  -b|--brotli                          Enable brotli compression
  -c|--cors                            Enable CORS (It will enable CORS for all origin and
                                       all methods)
  --save-options                       Save specified options to .netconfig for subsequent
                                       runs.
  --config-file                        Use the given .netconfig file.
  -?|--help                            Show help information

Usage

Starting server, serving .
Listening on:
  http://localhost:52244

Press CTRL+C to exit

Basic Usage

dotnet serve -o

HTTPS Usage

dotnet serve -o -S