Sometimes I want to run a simple web server in the current directory.

There are many ways to do this. Here's here's one using npm / serve .

Installation

npm install serve -g

. ~/.profile

Running

cd /path/to/directory

serve

You get this message:

serving /path/to/directory on port 3000

You can now access the directory in a browser:

Options

There are more options available:

serve -h

  Usage: serve [options] [dir]
  Options:
    -h, --help                output usage information

    -V, --version             output the version number

    -a, --auth <user>:<pass>  specify basic auth credentials

    -F, --format <fmt>        specify the log format string

    -p, --port <port>         specify the port [3000]

    -H, --hidden              enable hidden file serving

    -S, --no-stylus           disable stylus rendering

    -J, --no-jade             disable jade rendering

        --no-less             disable less css rendering

    -I, --no-icons            disable icons

    -L, --no-logs             disable request logging

    -D, --no-dirs             disable directory serving

    -f, --favicon <path>      serve the given favicon

    -C, --cors                allows cross origin access serving

        --compress            gzip or deflate the response

        --exec <cmd>          execute command on each request