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

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

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

Insert custom headers

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.

Start with TLS:

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.)

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=]

  -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

How to install

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.

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/[email protected]. You could install this to /etc/systemd/system/[email protected] 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.

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.