http

Host These Things Please - a basic HTTP server for hosting a folder fast and simply (now git-only: cargo install --git https://github.com/thecoshman/http)

Selected features

See the manpage for full list.

• Symlinks followed by default (disableable via -s option)
• Index generation for directories
• Sane defaults (like hosted dir (.) and port (first free one from range 8000-9999))
• Correct MIME type for served files
• Handled request methods: OPTIONS, GET, PUT, DELETE, HEAD and TRACE ("writing" methods are off by default, enable via -w switch)
• Proper handling of percent-encoded URLs (like асдф fdsa)
• Good symlink handling compatible with Windows
• Multitude of information in directory indices
• Serving index files like index.{html,htm,shtml} from directories (disableable via -i switch)
• Drag&Drop to upload files (with -w specified)
• Smart encoding of generated and filesystem-originating responses (disableable via -e switch)
• Full Range header support
• Hosting with an _(optional) optionally autogenerated TLS certificate
• Arbitrarily nested username/password authentication
• Per-request bandwidth cap
• Per-extension-overridable MIME-types with reasonable guesses
• WebDAV/RFC2518 support, tested with the Linux davfs2 helper, Windows network filesystem support (out-of-box), and the Total Commander WebDAV plugin
• RFSAPI support (format spec) (explorable from commandline with D'Oh)

Manpage

Installation

From Cargo

If you have cargo installed (you're a Rust developer) all you need to do is:

# unix:
RUSTC_BOOTSTRAP=1 cargo install --git https://github.com/thecoshman/http

rem windows:
set RUSTC_BOOTSTRAP=1
cargo install --git https://github.com/thecoshman/http

(the https crates.io package was http, but is now unpublishable). Similarly, cargo expressly ignores configuration that lets the crate be built when building through cargo install, hence the need for manual RUSTC_BOOTSTRAP=1, you may also want to set

cargo install-update-config -e RUSTC_BOOTSTRAP=1 https

for use with cargo-update

This will install http and httplz (identical, disable one or another if they clash) in the folder where all other binaries go.

From Debian repository

The following line in /etc/apt/sources.list or equivalent:

deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/nabijaczleweli.asc] https://debian.nabijaczleweli.xyz sid main

With my PGP key (the two URLs are interchangeable):

sudo wget -O/etc/apt/keyrings/nabijaczleweli.asc https://debian.nabijaczleweli.xyz/nabijaczleweli.gpg.key
sudo wget -O/etc/apt/keyrings/nabijaczleweli.asc https://nabijaczleweli.xyz/pgp.txt

(you may need to create /etc/apt/keyrings on apt <2.4.0 (<=bullseye) manually).

Then the usual

sudo apt update
sudo apt install http

will work on amd64 and i386.

See the repository README for more information.

On Arch Linux

Available from the community repository as httplz:

pacman -S httplz

From an installer

If, however, you're not a Rust developer, but you have sh-like shell, you can use an installer (works on Windows and Linux):

curl -SsL https://cdn.rawgit.com/thecoshman/http/master/install.sh | sh
# or, if you like taking precautions
sh -c "$(curl -SsL https://cdn.rawgit.com/thecoshman/http/master/install.sh)"

You can change the installation directory by setting the PREFIX environment variable (default - /usr/bin):

PREFIX=$HOME/bin curl -SsL https://cdn.rawgit.com/thecoshman/http/master/install.sh | sh
# Windows:
set PREFIX=D:\Akces
curl -SsL https://cdn.rawgit.com/thecoshman/http/master/install.sh | sh

If you're on a Debian-based amd64 machine, you can also grab a .deb package from the latest release page.

If you're on Windows and prefer a more guided installation (or you don't have a shell), you can download the Windows installer from the latest release's page. (Note: you can add /D INSTALLDIR to installer command line to change the installation directory.)

Aims

The idea is to make a program that can compile down to a simple binary that can be used via Linux CLI to quickly take the current directory and serve it over HTTP. Everything should have sensible defaults such that you do not have to pass parameters like what port to use.

• Sub directories would be automatically hosted.
• Symlinks will not be followed by default (in my opinion, this is more likely to be a problem than an intended thing).
• Root should not be required.
• If an index file isn't provided, one will be generated (in memory, no touching the disk, why would you do that you dirty freak you), that will list the current files and folders (and then sub directories will have index files generated as required)
• Changes made to files should be reflected instantly, as I don't see why anything would be cached... you request a file, a file will be looked for

It's not going to be a 'production ready' tool, it's a quick and dirty way of hosting a folder, so whilst I'll try to make it secure, it is not going to be a serious goal.