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miniserve - a CLI tool to serve files and dirs over HTTP

miniserve - a CLI tool to serve files and dirs over HTTP

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For when you really just want to serve some files over HTTP right now!

miniserve is a small, self-contained cross-platform CLI tool that allows you to just grab the binary and serve some file(s) via HTTP. Sometimes this is just a more practical and quick way than doing things properly.

Screenshot

Screenshot

How to use

Serve a directory:

miniserve linux-distro-collection/

Serve a single file:

miniserve linux-distro.iso

Set a custom index file to serve instead of a file listing:

miniserve --index test.html

Serve an SPA (Single Page Application) so that non-existent paths are forwarded to the SPA's router instead

miniserve --spa --index index.html

Require username/password:

miniserve --auth joe:123 unreleased-linux-distros/

Require username/password as hash:

pw=$(echo -n "123" | sha256sum | cut -f 1 -d ' ')
miniserve --auth joe:sha256:$pw unreleased-linux-distros/

Require username/password from file (separate logins with new lines):

miniserve --auth-file auth.txt unreleased-linux-distros/

Generate random 6-hexdigit URL:

miniserve -i 192.168.0.1 --random-route /tmp
# Serving path /private/tmp at http://192.168.0.1/c789b6

Bind to multiple interfaces:

miniserve -i 192.168.0.1 -i 10.13.37.10 -i ::1 /tmp/myshare

Start with TLS:

miniserve --tls-cert my.cert --tls-key my.key /tmp/myshare

Upload a file using curl:

# in one terminal
miniserve -u -- .
# in another terminal
curl -F "path=@$FILE" http://localhost:8080/upload\?path\=/

(where $FILE is the path to the file. This uses miniserve's default port of 8080)

Note that for uploading, we have to use -- to disambiguate the argument to -u. This is because -u can also take a path (or multiple). If a path argument to -u is given, uploading will only be possible to the provided paths as opposed to every path.

Another effect of this is that you can't just combine flags like this -uv when -u is used. In this example, you'd need to use -u -v.

Create a directory using curl:

# in one terminal
miniserve --upload-files --mkdir .
# in another terminal
curl -F "mkdir=$DIR_NAME" http://localhost:8080/upload\?path=\/

(where $DIR_NAME is the name of the directory. This uses miniserve's default port of 8080.)

Take pictures and upload them from smartphones:

miniserve -u -m image -q

This uses the --media-type option, which sends a hint for the expected media type to the browser. Some mobile browsers like Firefox on Android will offer to open the camera app when seeing this.

Features

  • Easy to use
  • Just works: Correct MIME types handling out of the box
  • Single binary drop-in with no extra dependencies required
  • Authentication support with username and password (and hashed password)
  • Mega fast and highly parallel (thanks to Rust and Actix)
  • Folder download (compressed on the fly as .tar.gz or .zip)
  • File uploading
  • Directory creation
  • Pretty themes (with light and dark theme support)
  • Scan QR code for quick access
  • Shell completions
  • Sane and secure defaults
  • TLS (for supported architectures)
  • Supports README.md rendering like on GitHub
  • Range requests

Usage

For when you really just want to serve some files over HTTP right now!

Usage: miniserve [OPTIONS] [PATH]

Arguments:
  [PATH]
          Which path to serve

          [env: MINISERVE_PATH=]

Options:
  -v, --verbose
          Be verbose, includes emitting access logs

          [env: MINISERVE_VERBOSE=]

      --index <INDEX>
          The name of a directory index file to serve, like "index.html"

          Normally, when miniserve serves a directory, it creates a listing for that directory. However, if a directory
          contains this file, miniserve will serve that file instead.

          [env: MINISERVE_INDEX=]

      --spa
          Activate SPA (Single Page Application) mode

          This will cause the file given by --index to be served for all non-existing file paths. In effect, this will serve
          the index file whenever a 404 would otherwise occur in order to allow the SPA router to handle the request instead.

          [env: MINISERVE_SPA=]

      --pretty-urls
          Activate Pretty URLs mode

          This will cause the server to serve the equivalent `.html` file indicated by the path.

          `/about` will try to find `about.html` and serve it.

          [env: MINISERVE_PRETTY_URLS=]

  -p, --port <PORT>
          Port to use

          [env: MINISERVE_PORT=]
          [default: 8080]

  -i, --interfaces <INTERFACES>
          Interface to listen on

          [env: MINISERVE_INTERFACE=]

  -a, --auth <AUTH>
          Set authentication

          Currently supported formats:
          username:password, username:sha256:hash, username:sha512:hash
          (e.g. joe:123, joe:sha256:a665a45920422f9d417e4867efdc4fb8a04a1f3fff1fa07e998e86f7f7a27ae3)

          [env: MINISERVE_AUTH=]

      --auth-file <AUTH_FILE>
          Read authentication values from a file

          Example file content:

          joe:123
          bob:sha256:a665a45920422f9d417e4867efdc4fb8a04a1f3fff1fa07e998e86f7f7a27ae3
          bill:

          [env: MINISERVE_AUTH_FILE=]

      --route-prefix <ROUTE_PREFIX>
          Use a specific route prefix

          [env: MINISERVE_ROUTE_PREFIX=]

      --random-route
          Generate a random 6-hexdigit route

          [env: MINISERVE_RANDOM_ROUTE=]

  -P, --no-symlinks
          Hide symlinks in listing and prevent them from being followed

          [env: MINISERVE_NO_SYMLINKS=]

  -H, --hidden
          Show hidden files

          [env: MINISERVE_HIDDEN=]

  -c, --color-scheme <COLOR_SCHEME>
          Default color scheme

          [env: MINISERVE_COLOR_SCHEME=]
          [default: squirrel]
          [possible values: squirrel, archlinux, zenburn, monokai]

  -d, --color-scheme-dark <COLOR_SCHEME_DARK>
          Default color scheme

          [env: MINISERVE_COLOR_SCHEME_DARK=]
          [default: archlinux]
          [possible values: squirrel, archlinux, zenburn, monokai]

  -q, --qrcode
          Enable QR code display

          [env: MINISERVE_QRCODE=]

  -u, --upload-files [<ALLOWED_UPLOAD_DIR>]
          Enable file uploading (and optionally specify for which directory)

          [env: MINISERVE_ALLOWED_UPLOAD_DIR=]

  -U, --mkdir
          Enable creating directories

          [env: MINISERVE_MKDIR_ENABLED=]

  -m, --media-type <MEDIA_TYPE>
          Specify uploadable media types

          [env: MINISERVE_MEDIA_TYPE=]
          [possible values: image, audio, video]

  -M, --raw-media-type <MEDIA_TYPE_RAW>
          Directly specify the uploadable media type expression

          [env: MINISERVE_RAW_MEDIA_TYPE=]

  -o, --overwrite-files
          Enable overriding existing files during file upload

          [env: OVERWRITE_FILES=]

  -r, --enable-tar
          Enable uncompressed tar archive generation

          [env: MINISERVE_ENABLE_TAR=]

  -g, --enable-tar-gz
          Enable gz-compressed tar archive generation

          [env: MINISERVE_ENABLE_TAR_GZ=]

  -z, --enable-zip
          Enable zip archive generation

          WARNING: Zipping large directories can result in out-of-memory exception because zip generation is done in memory
          and cannot be sent on the fly

          [env: MINISERVE_ENABLE_ZIP=]

  -D, --dirs-first
          List directories first

          [env: MINISERVE_DIRS_FIRST=]

  -t, --title <TITLE>
          Shown instead of host in page title and heading

          [env: MINISERVE_TITLE=]

      --header <HEADER>
          Set custom header for responses

          [env: MINISERVE_HEADER=]

  -l, --show-symlink-info
          Visualize symlinks in directory listing

          [env: MINISERVE_SHOW_SYMLINK_INFO=]

  -F, --hide-version-footer
          Hide version footer

          [env: MINISERVE_HIDE_VERSION_FOOTER=]

      --hide-theme-selector
          Hide theme selector

          [env: MINISERVE_HIDE_THEME_SELECTOR=]

  -W, --show-wget-footer
          If enabled, display a wget command to recursively download the current directory

          [env: MINISERVE_SHOW_WGET_FOOTER=]

      --print-completions <shell>
          Generate completion file for a shell

          [possible values: bash, elvish, fish, powershell, zsh]

      --print-manpage
          Generate man page

      --tls-cert <TLS_CERT>
          TLS certificate to use

          [env: MINISERVE_TLS_CERT=]

      --tls-key <TLS_KEY>
          TLS private key to use

          [env: MINISERVE_TLS_KEY=]

      --readme
          Enable README.md rendering in directories

          [env: MINISERVE_README=]

  -h, --help
          Print help (see a summary with '-h')

  -V, --version
          Print version

How to install

Packaging status

On Linux: Download miniserve-linux from the releases page and run

chmod +x miniserve-linux
./miniserve-linux

Alternatively, if you are on Arch Linux, you can do

pacman -S miniserve

On Termux

pkg install miniserve

On OSX: Download miniserve-osx from the releases page and run

chmod +x miniserve-osx
./miniserve-osx

Alternatively install with Homebrew:

brew install miniserve
miniserve

On Windows: Download miniserve-win.exe from the releases page and run

miniserve-win.exe

Alternatively install with Scoop:

scoop install miniserve

With Cargo: Make sure you have a recent version of Rust. Then you can run

cargo install --locked miniserve
miniserve

With Docker: Make sure the Docker daemon is running and then run

docker run -v /tmp:/tmp -p 8080:8080 --rm -it docker.io/svenstaro/miniserve /tmp

With Podman: Just run

podman run -v /tmp:/tmp -p 8080:8080 --rm -it docker.io/svenstaro/miniserve /tmp

Shell completions

If you'd like to make use of the built-in shell completion support, you need to run miniserve --print-completions <your-shell> and put the completions in the correct place for your shell. A few examples with common paths are provided below:

# For bash
miniserve --print-completions bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/miniserve
# For zsh
miniserve --print-completions zsh > /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_miniserve
# For fish
miniserve --print-completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/miniserve.fish

systemd

A hardened systemd-compatible unit file can be found in packaging/miniserve@.service. You could install this to /etc/systemd/system/miniserve@.service and start and enable miniserve as a daemon on a specific serve path /my/serve/path like this:

systemctl enable --now miniserve@-my-serve-path

Keep in mind that you'll have to use systemd-escape to properly escape a path for this usage.

In case you want to customize the particular flags that miniserve launches with, you can use

systemctl edit miniserve@-my-serve-path

and set the [Service] part in the resulting override.conf file. For instance:

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/miniserve --enable-tar --enable-zip --no-symlinks --verbose -i ::1 -p 1234 --title hello --color-scheme monokai --color-scheme-dark monokai -- %I

Make sure to leave the %I at the very end in place or the wrong path might be served. You might additionally have to override IPAddressAllow and IPAddressDeny if you plan on making miniserve directly available on a public interface.

Binding behavior

For convenience reasons, miniserve will try to bind on all interfaces by default (if no -i is provided). It will also do that if explicitly provided with -i 0.0.0.0 or -i ::. In all of the aforementioned cases, it will bind on both IPv4 and IPv6. If provided with an explicit non-default interface, it will ONLY bind to that interface. You can provide -i multiple times to bind to multiple interfaces at the same time.

Why use this over alternatives?

  • darkhttpd: Not easily available on Windows and it's not as easy as download-and-go.
  • Python built-in webserver: Need to have Python installed, it's low performance, and also doesn't do correct MIME type handling in some cases.
  • netcat: Not as convenient to use and sending directories is somewhat involved.

Releasing

This is mostly a note for me on how to release this thing:

  • Make sure CHANGELOG.md is up to date.
  • cargo release <version>
  • cargo release --execute <version>
  • Releases will automatically be deployed by GitHub Actions.
  • Update Arch package.