Web server in one line of bash

[WestCoastJustin]

If you have python, then these are really useful, just serves up the current directory.

  Python 2.x:
  python -m SimpleHTTPServer

  Python 3.x:
  python -m http.server 8000

[gmac]

Or for https (e.g. when developing for Chrome's speech recognition API):

    twistd --nodaemon web --path=. -c snakeoil.crt -k snakeoil.key --https=8443

And to generate a 100-year localhost key/cert for use with this:

    openssl genrsa -passout pass:dummy -out snakeoil.secure.key 1024
    openssl rsa -passin pass:dummy -in snakeoil.secure.key -out snakeoil.key
    openssl req -new -subj "/commonName=localhost" -key snakeoil.key -out snakeoil.csr
    openssl x509 -req -days 36500 -in snakeoil.csr -signkey snakeoil.key -out snakeoil.crt

[RobAley]

Or if you have PHP, there is an equivalent in 5.4 and above.

http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php

[sprobertson]

Easier to remember, plus Python is probably more likely to exist on a given machine than netcat.

[mikegirouard]

This is still my go-to solution, though I couldn't help but to share when I found the other solution.

[tga]

Since everyone uses the one line of bash to just start their favourite complex network utility, I'll also contribute mine:

while true; sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl start; break; done;

[tga]

And, for the sake of accuracy, the proper bash syntax would be:

  while true; do sudo /usr/sbin/apachectl start; break; done;

[jiggy2011]

I came to this thread to post the exact same joke.

[general_failure]

Why is there a while true?

[aprescott]

This seems to be straight from Wikipedia and then wrapped in a while loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcat#Setting_up_a_one-shot_w...

netcat's cool, but the post could've gone a bit further. If it's an intro "how to do this", maybe explain the moving parts for beginners?

[knome]

> As root you can run:

Unless the specified 'index.html' is only readable by root, you don't have to be root to run that.

Only the low ports are restricted from regular users.

[anakron]

We've used a similar trick to copy files between coworkers:

  on server: while true; nc -l $PORT < $FILE; done
  on client: nc $SERVER $PORT > $FILE

Quick, simple and easy to fire up. You can continue to hack on the file and nc will serve up the latest saved version.

[gamegoblin]

Is your while loop missing a "do" statement, or am I missing something?

[shurcooL]

In one line, using Go and goe [1]. :)

    $ goe 'net/http' 'ListenAndServe(":8080", FileServer(Dir("/usr/share/doc/")))'

[1] https://github.com/shurcooL/goe

[raldi]

That's not a one-line script. That's a multi-line script with the linebreaks removed.

[jlgreco]

I suggest you don't say things like that around Perl programmers.

[mrhazel]

It is 85 characters long. Strip some spaces from it, and it qualifies as a one-liner.

[lambda]

socat version; no loop, as it forks a separate process for each connection:

    socat TCP-LISTEN:8080,fork,crnl SYSTEM:'printf \"HTTP/1.1 200 OK\\n\\n\"\; cat test.html'

The extra quoting you need to do the the SYSTEM argument makes this rather cumbersome. socat is a powerful tool, but can sometimes be a pain to use.

Here's one use I found for it recently, when I wanted to do some experimentation with multicast:

    socat - UDP-DATAGRAM:239.255.1.1:4242,ip-add-membership=239.255.1.1:10.0.0.10,ip-multicast-loop=0,bind=:4242

This causes socat to bind to the multicast group 239.255.1.1 on the interface that has the unicast IP 10.0.0.10, sending and receiving on port 4242 over UDP, reading from stdin and writing to stdout. It basically gives you a simple chat service over the local network.

[hyperair]

$ busybox httpd

Works even in an initramfs, and in some embedded systems. Serves up the current directory, and you can even have CGI scripts in cgi-bin.

[mcpherrinm]

Woah, I didn't realize busybox had an httpd. Truly a sweet piece of software.

[voltagex_]

Thanks! I'd forgotten about busybox, but that's often how your home router is doing things.

* Side note: if it is, make sure your router manufacturer provides the GPL source release.

[kokey]

I remember trying to write a web server that can respond to requests in bash, several years ago. Since it didn't have sockets support that part was going to be handled by netcat. The problem I ended up with was that bash couldn't read and write to the same pipe. The mkfifo solution was the closest that I got to. It turns out that ksh was perfectly capable of reading and writing to the same pipe at that stage. Not long after I got stuck with bash, awk started to support sockets so I used that. Then bash started to support sockets, and many more features, so I suspect it's possible to write a solution in bash now that doesn't need netcat, but might still need a fifo.

[fooyc]

Nice. However:

    $ curl localhost:8080 & curl localhost:8080
    <!doctype html>
    [...]
    curl: (7) Failed connect to localhost:8080; Connection refused

Yes, the server "restarts" after each request, and during the restart, it's not listening.

That's not what I would call a "server".

[lambda]

The socat version I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6224060 fixes this problem, but is a bit more cumbersome.

[theone]

If you have node-static installed.

  npm install -g node-static
  # serve up the current directory
  $ static
  serving "." at http://127.0.0.1:8080

More at https://github.com/cloudhead/node-static

[adduc]

Similarly, if PHP 5.4 (or greater) is installed:

    php -S 127.0.0.1:8080

[prezjordan]

With built-in caching to boot!

[anonymouz]

I can recommend 'woof' [1] for simple ad-hoc sharing of files through HTTP. It has some extra features, like quickly sharing a directory as tar file.

[1] http://www.home.unix-ag.org/simon/woof.html

[human_error]

Another one: http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/04/webserver-in-bash.h...

[neeee]

You can actually write a web server in pure bash, with no netcat, using /dev/tcp (bash magic). https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Redirecti... http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/more-using-bashs-built-d...

[defap]

That's demonstrating an HTTP client, not a server. I don't think there's a way to make /dev/tcp accept incoming connections.

[swirepe]

I like woof,which is a single file and can also serve itself.

http://www.home.unix-ag.org/simon/woof.html

[zerop]

Netcat for 21st Century Ncat -- http://nmap.org/ncat/

[amitamb]

Since nobody mentioned ruby version

ruby -run -e httpd . -p 5000

[thefox]

On Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) argument "-l 8080" without "-p" causes netcat (v1.10-40) to listen on a random port. I must run "nc -l -p 8080" to listen at 8080.

[gcmalloc]

Adding my two cent:

    twistd web --path . --port 8080