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@bradmontgomery
Last active January 23, 2024 14:23
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a minimal http server in python. Responds to GET, HEAD, POST requests, but will fail on anything else.
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
Very simple HTTP server in python (Updated for Python 3.7)
Usage:
./dummy-web-server.py -h
./dummy-web-server.py -l localhost -p 8000
Send a GET request:
curl http://localhost:8000
Send a HEAD request:
curl -I http://localhost:8000
Send a POST request:
curl -d "foo=bar&bin=baz" http://localhost:8000
This code is available for use under the MIT license.
----
Copyright 2021 Brad Montgomery
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and
associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction,
including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial
portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE
OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
"""
import argparse
from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
class S(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def _set_headers(self):
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
self.end_headers()
def _html(self, message):
"""This just generates an HTML document that includes `message`
in the body. Override, or re-write this do do more interesting stuff.
"""
content = f"<html><body><h1>{message}</h1></body></html>"
return content.encode("utf8") # NOTE: must return a bytes object!
def do_GET(self):
self._set_headers()
self.wfile.write(self._html("hi!"))
def do_HEAD(self):
self._set_headers()
def do_POST(self):
# Doesn't do anything with posted data
self._set_headers()
self.wfile.write(self._html("POST!"))
def run(server_class=HTTPServer, handler_class=S, addr="localhost", port=8000):
server_address = (addr, port)
httpd = server_class(server_address, handler_class)
print(f"Starting httpd server on {addr}:{port}")
httpd.serve_forever()
if __name__ == "__main__":
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Run a simple HTTP server")
parser.add_argument(
"-l",
"--listen",
default="localhost",
help="Specify the IP address on which the server listens",
)
parser.add_argument(
"-p",
"--port",
type=int,
default=8000,
help="Specify the port on which the server listens",
)
args = parser.parse_args()
run(addr=args.listen, port=args.port)
@Terkwood
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Thanks!

@denzenin
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denzenin commented Nov 2, 2018

Brad, thanks you!

Also I am using Python 3.7 and the following corrections were needed for provided snippet to work properly:

  1. In imports:
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
import socketserver
  1. Encode string arguments of self.wfile.write like this:
self.wfile.write("<html><body><h1>hi!</h1></body></html>".encode("utf-8"))
self.wfile.write("<html><body><h1>POST!</h1></body></html>".encode("utf-8"))

@prabindh
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prabindh commented Feb 2, 2019

For testing POST, if encountering
"ConnectionResetError: [WinError 10054] An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host"

Need to use curl as below:
curl -d "foo=bar&bin=baz" http://localhost --tlsv1.2

@jsdevtom
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jsdevtom commented May 9, 2019

No import SocketServer is not needed and can be removed.

It works for me without this import with python 2.7...

@drjoms
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drjoms commented May 16, 2019

I take it's python 2.7, as print function doesn't use square brackets and:

from BaseHTTPServer import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in

Any chance thsi wil lbe made in version 3?

@drjoms
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drjoms commented May 16, 2019

also, please mark code as 2.* version of python somewhere in title.

@gotev
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gotev commented Sep 27, 2019

Used this as a base for a static JSON File Server in Python 3.7. Files are a in a sub directory called cached-responses and they all have .json extension.

#!/usr/bin/env python3
from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
import os

base_path = os.path.dirname(__file__)

class StaticServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):

    def execute_request(self):
        filename = 'cached-responses' + self.path + '.json'

        self.send_response(200)
        self.send_header('Content-type', 'application/json')
        self.end_headers()
        with open(os.path.join(base_path, filename), 'rb') as fh:
            self.wfile.write(fh.read())

    def do_POST(self):
        self.execute_request()

    def do_GET(self):
        self.execute_request()

def run(server_class=HTTPServer, handler_class=StaticServer, port=8000):
    server_address = ('', port)
    httpd = server_class(server_address, handler_class)
    print('Starting Server on port {}'.format(port))
    httpd.serve_forever()

run()

@bradmontgomery
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Author

😬 I've somehow missed all the activity on this gist all these years! A very late thank you to everyone that's commented.

I've updated the original post for Python 3.7, and cleaned it up a bit. Hope this continues to be useful 🙇‍♂️

@emccrckn
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Good stuff!

@joshwlewis
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Wow, neat. It even takes CLI arguments!

@bradmontgomery
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Author

@joshwlewis @emccrckn 🤣 👍 💯

@sharifulgeo
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good start!

@dualfade
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Just tumbled into this myself. ! fantastic.

@texasStronger
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For python 3.7 on windows 10, I had to add decode to the post_data.

def do_POST(self):
    content_length = int(self.headers['Content-Length']) # <--- Gets the size of data
    post_data = self.rfile.read(content_length) # <--- Gets the data itself
    pd = post_data.decode("utf-8")   # <-------- ADD this line
    self._set_headers()
    self.wfile.write(self._html("POST! "+pd))

@elvisAR-git
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I need help, for the 'Content-Length' its always 0, is there something i'm doing wrong?

@judab5ericom
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Looks great! only missing multi-thread/daemon feature ;)

@jcalcada
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Great Simple Little Utility. For those asking about extra features like response codes etc. This is a VERY SIMPLE Server. It does as what's advertised.

@Pomax
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Pomax commented Feb 5, 2023

This probably still needs a 404 somewhere to show how to send proper http status numbers.

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