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.
miniserve linux-distro-collection/
miniserve linux-distro.iso
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
miniserve --auth joe:123 unreleased-linux-distros/
pw=$(echo -n "123" | sha256sum | cut -f 1 -d ' ')
miniserve --auth joe:sha256:$pw unreleased-linux-distros/
miniserve --auth-file auth.txt unreleased-linux-distros/
miniserve -i 192.168.0.1 --random-route /tmp
# Serving path /private/tmp at http://192.168.0.1/c789b6
miniserve -i 192.168.0.1 -i 10.13.37.10 -i ::1 /tmp/myshare
miniserve --header "Cache-Control:no-cache" --header "X-Custom-Header:custom-value" -p 8080 /tmp/myshare
# Check headers in another terminal
curl -I http://localhost:8080
If a header is already set or previously inserted, it will not be overwritten.
miniserve --tls-cert my.cert --tls-key my.key /tmp/myshare
# Fullchain TLS and HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)
miniserve --tls-cert fullchain.pem --tls-key my.key --header "Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload" /tmp/myshare
If the parameter value has spaces, be sure to wrap it in quotes.
(To achieve an A+ rating at https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/, enabling both fullchain TLS and HSTS is necessary.)
# in one terminal
miniserve -u -- .
# in another terminal
curl -F "path=@$FILE" http://localhost:8080/upload\?path\=/
(where $FILE is the path to the file. This uses miniserve's default port of 8080)
Note that for uploading, we have to use -- to disambiguate the argument to -u.
This is because -u can also take a path (or multiple). If a path argument to -u is given,
uploading will only be possible to the provided paths as opposed to every path.
Another effect of this is that you can't just combine flags like this -uv when -u is used. In
this example, you'd need to use -u -v.
# in one terminal
miniserve --upload-files --mkdir .
# in another terminal
curl -F "mkdir=$DIR_NAME" http://localhost:8080/upload\?path=\/
(where $DIR_NAME is the name of the directory. This uses miniserve's default port of 8080.)
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.
- 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.gzor.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
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=]
-S, --default-sorting-method <DEFAULT_SORTING_METHOD>
Default sorting method for file list
[env: MINISERVE_DEFAULT_SORTING_METHOD=]
[default: name]
Possible values:
- name: Sort by name
- size: Sort by size
- date: Sort by last modification date (natural sort: follows alphanumerical order)
-O, --default-sorting-order <DEFAULT_SORTING_ORDER>
Default sorting order for file list
[env: MINISERVE_DEFAULT_SORTING_ORDER=]
[default: desc]
Possible values:
- asc: Ascending order
- desc: Descending order
-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: MINISERVE_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=]
-C, --compress-response
Compress response
WARNING: Enabling this option may slow down transfers due to CPU overhead, so it is disabled by default.
Only enable this option if you know that your users have slow connections or if you want to minimize your server's bandwidth usage.
[env: MINISERVE_COMPRESS_RESPONSE=]
-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>
Inserts custom headers into the responses. Specify each header as a 'Header:Value' pair.
This parameter can be used multiple times to add multiple headers.
Example:
--header "Header1:Value1" --header "Header2:Value2"
(If a header is already set or previously inserted, it will not be overwritten.)
[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=]
-I, --disable-indexing
Disable indexing
This will prevent directory listings from being generated and return an error instead.
[env: MINISERVE_DISABLE_INDEXING=]
-h, --help
Print help (see a summary with '-h')
-V, --version
Print version
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
With Helm: See this third-party Helm chart by @wrenix.
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
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=
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.
Alternatively, you can configure the service via environment variables:
[Service]
Environment=MINISERVE_ENABLE_TAR=true
Environment=MINISERVE_ENABLE_ZIP=true
Environment="MINISERVE_TITLE=hello world"
...
You might additionally have to override IPAddressAllow and IPAddressDeny if you plan on making
miniserve directly available on a public interface.
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.
- 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.
This is mostly a note for me on how to release this thing:
- Make sure
CHANGELOG.mdis up to date. cargo release <version>cargo release --execute <version>- Releases will automatically be deployed by GitHub Actions.
- Update Arch package.