Requires node v8 or above. Upgraders, please read the release notes.

local-web-server

A modular HTTP, HTTPS and HTTP2 command-line web server for productive full-stack development.

Use this tool to:

• Help build any flavour of front-end web application.
  • Static site, dynamic site with client or server-rendered content, Single Page App, Progessive Web App, Angular or React app etc.
• Prototype a CORS-enabled back-end service.
  • RESTful HTTP API, microservice, websocket server, Server Sent Events service etc.
• Monitor activity, analyse performance, fine-tune caching strategy etc.

Features:

• Full control over the middleware stack
• Single Page Application (SPA) support
• URL Rewriting
• Proxy requests to remote resources
• HTTP Conditional Request support
• Range request support
• Gzip response compression
• HTTP Basic Authentication
• Configurable access log
• Route blacklisting and more

Local-web-server is a distribution of lws bundled with a "starter pack" of useful middleware.

Synopsis

This package installs the ws command-line tool (take a look at the usage guide).

Static web site

Running ws without any arguments will host the current directory as a static web site. Navigating to the server will render a directory listing or your index.html, if that file exists.

$ ws
Serving at http://mbp.local:8000, http://127.0.0.1:8000, http://192.168.0.100:8000

Single Page Application

Serving a Single Page Application (an app with client-side routing, e.g. a React or Angular app) is as trivial as specifying the name of your single page:

$ ws --spa index.html
Serving at http://mbp.local:8000, http://127.0.0.1:8000, http://192.168.0.100:8000

With a static site, requests for typical SPA paths (e.g. /user/1, /login) would return 404 Not Found as a file at that location does not exist. However, by marking index.html as the SPA you create this rule:

If a static file is requested (e.g. /css/style.css) then serve it, if not (e.g. /login) then serve the specified SPA and handle the route client-side.

SPA tutorial.

URL rewriting and proxied requests

Another common use case is to forward certain requests to a remote server. The following command would proxy requests from any URL beginning with /api/ to https://internal-service.local/api/. For example, a request to /api/posts/1 would be proxied to https://internal-service.local/api/posts/1.

$ ws --rewrite '/api/* -> https://internal-service.local/api/$1'
Serving at http://mbp.local:8000, http://127.0.0.1:8000, http://192.168.0.100:8000

HTTPS

Launch a secure server by setting the --https flag. See the wiki for further configuration options and a guide on how to get the "green padlock" in your browser.

$ ws --https
Serving at https://mbp.local:8000, https://127.0.0.1:8000, https://192.168.0.100:8000

HTTP2

Uses node's built-in HTTP2 support. See the wiki for further info about HTTPS options and a guide on how to get the "green padlock" in your browser.

$ ws --http2
Serving at https://mbp.local:8000, https://127.0.0.1:8000, https://192.168.0.100:8000

Further Documentation

See the wiki for plenty more documentation and tutorials.

Install

Requires node v8 or above. Install the previous release for node >= v4.0.0.

$ npm install -g local-web-server

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© 2013-19 Lloyd Brookes <75pound@gmail.com>. Documented by jsdoc-to-markdown.