Dead Server

This is a quick-fix (updated version) for an original "Live Server" package. Original version doesn't seem to be maintained, and while there was a major breaking change in the dependencies, I took to quick-fixing it.

Intro

This is a little development server with live reload capability. Use it for hacking your HTML/JavaScript/CSS files, but not for deploying the final site.

There are two reasons for using this:

1. AJAX requests don't work with the file:// protocol due to security restrictions, i.e. you need a server if your site fetches content through JavaScript.
2. Having the page reload automatically after changes to files can accelerate development.

Install

I do not recommend to install this package globally, because this might be an obstacle while working in a team. It's better to have it in your package.json file, so all teams could use it without a hustle.

Npm way

npm i -D dead-server

Manual way

git clone https://github.com/belauzas/dead-server
cd dead-server
npm install # Local dependencies if you want to hack
npm install -g # Install globally

Usage with package.json

Package.json part:

  "scripts": {
    "dev": "dead-server --port=3000 --host=localhost"
  }

CLI command:

$ npm run dev

Usage from command line

Issue the command dead-server in your project's directory. Alternatively you can add the path to serve as a command line parameter.

This will automatically launch the default browser. When you make a change to any file, the browser will reload the page - unless it was a CSS file in which case the changes are applied without a reload.

Note: dead-server has to be globally installed.

$ dead-server

Alternatively you can add the path to serve as a command line parameter.

$ dead-server ./index.html

General template:

$ dead-server [PATH] [OPTIONS...]

Parameters

• --port=NUMBER - select port to use, default: PORT env var or 8080
• --host=ADDRESS - select host address to bind to, default: IP env var or 0.0.0.0 ("any address")
• --no-browser - suppress automatic web browser launching
• --browser=BROWSER - specify browser to use instead of system default
• --quiet | -q - suppress logging
• --verbose | -V - more logging (logs all requests, shows all listening IPv4 interfaces, etc.)
• --open=PATH - launch browser to PATH instead of server root
• --watch=PATH - comma-separated string of paths to exclusively watch for changes (default: watch everything)
• --ignore=PATH - comma-separated string of paths to ignore (anymatch-compatible definition)
• --ignorePattern=RGXP - Regular expression of files to ignore (ie .*\.jade) (DEPRECATED in favor of --ignore)
• --no-css-inject - reload page on CSS change, rather than injecting changed CSS
• --middleware=PATH - path to .js file exporting a middleware function to add; can be a name without path nor extension to reference bundled middlewares in middleware folder
• --entry-file=PATH - serve this file (server root relative) in place of missing files (useful for single page apps)
• --mount=ROUTE:PATH - serve the paths contents under the defined route (multiple definitions possible)
• --spa - translate requests from /abc to /#/abc (handy for Single Page Apps)
• --wait=MILLISECONDS - (default 100ms) wait for all changes, before reloading
• --htpasswd=PATH - Enables http-auth expecting htpasswd file located at PATH
• --cors - Enables CORS for any origin (reflects request origin, requests with credentials are supported)
• --https=PATH - PATH to a HTTPS configuration module
• --https-module=MODULE_NAME - Custom HTTPS module (e.g. spdy)
• --proxy=ROUTE:URL - proxy all requests for ROUTE to URL
• --help | -h - display terse usage hint and exit
• --version | -v - display version and exit

Default options:

If a file ~/.dead-server.json exists it will be loaded and used as default options for dead-server on the command line. See "Usage from node" for option names.

Usage from node

var deadServer = require("dead-server");

var params = {
	port: 8181, // Set the server port. Defaults to 8080.
	host: "0.0.0.0", // Set the address to bind to. Defaults to 0.0.0.0 or process.env.IP.
	root: "/public", // Set root directory that's being served. Defaults to cwd.
	open: false, // When false, it won't load your browser by default.
	ignore: "scss,my/templates", // comma-separated string for paths to ignore
	file: "index.html", // When set, serve this file (server root relative) for every 404 (useful for single-page applications)
	wait: 1000, // Waits for all changes, before reloading. Defaults to 0 sec.
	mount: [["/components", "./node_modules"]], // Mount a directory to a route.
	logLevel: 2, // 0 = errors only, 1 = some, 2 = lots
	middleware: [
		function (req, res, next) {
			next();
		},
	], // Takes an array of Connect-compatible middleware that are injected into the server middleware stack
};
deadServer.start(params);

HTTPS

In order to enable HTTPS support, you'll need to create a configuration module. The module must export an object that will be used to configure a HTTPS server. The keys are the same as the keys in options for tls.createServer.

For example:

var fs = require("fs");

module.exports = {
	cert: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/server.cert"),
	key: fs.readFileSync(__dirname + "/server.key"),
	passphrase: "12345",
};

If using the node API, you can also directly pass a configuration object instead of a path to the module.

HTTP/2

To get HTTP/2 support one can provide a custom HTTPS module via --https-module CLI parameter (httpsModule option for Node.js script). Be sure to install the module first. HTTP/2 unencrypted mode is not supported by browsers, thus not supported by dead-server. See this question and can I use page on HTTP/2 for more details.

For example from CLI(bash):

dead-server \
  --https=path/to/https.conf.js \
  --https-module=spdy \
  my-app-folder/

Troubleshooting

• No reload on changes
  • Ensure that your index file has html, head and body tag
  • Open your browser's console: there should be a message at the top stating that live reload is enabled. Note that you will need a browser that supports WebSockets. If there are errors, deal with them. If it's still not working, file an issue.
• Error: watch ENOSPC
  • See this suggested solution.
• Reload works but changes are missing or outdated
  • Try using --wait=MS option. Where MS is time in milliseconds to wait before issuing a reload.

How it works

The server is a simple node app that serves the working directory and its subdirectories. It also watches the files for changes and when that happens, it sends a message through a web socket connection to the browser instructing it to reload. In order for the client side to support this, the server injects a small piece of JavaScript code to each requested html file. This script establishes the web socket connection and listens to the reload requests. CSS files can be refreshed without a full page reload by finding the referenced stylesheets from the DOM and tricking the browser to fetch and parse them again.

For more details, please refer to live-server documentation.

Version history

• v1.0.9

  • Fixed README typos

• v1.0.8

  • Additional dependencies upgrade

• v1.0.7

  • Upgraded dependencies; thanks to @jotapesan

• v1.0.6

  • README update
  • Support relative path specified for middleware
  • Fixed issue regarding Folder Containing Exclamation Sign (!)

• v1.0.5

  • removed colors dependency and use chalk instead

• v1.0.4

  • opn package changed to open
  • cors, object-assign, send and proxy-middleware versions changed from "latest" to respective latest stable versions

• v1.0.3

  • minor updates

• v1.0.2

  • mistype fix

• v1.0.1

  • even more renaming

• v1.0.0

  • Fork and colors package fix (revert to v1.4.0)
  • rename to dead-server