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static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

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Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#31

Post by mholt »

unethical_ban wrote: post #22
abhishekjha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there more to the philosophy of why caddy exists? I am trying to jump into a few open source projects to hone my programming skills and I have a harder time comprehending things if I don't know what was the overall intention of the authors.

Caddy's appeal when I last looked at it some years ago was that the configuration file format was very easy to read and use; and that configuration itself was minimal. It came/comes with Letsencrypt integration which was novel some years ago, so setting up a secure site was even easier for people who weren't used to it. Its syntax for being configured as a reverse proxy (secure front-end to less secure back-end serve…

Caddy has ALWAYS had the Apache 2.0 license. For a time we did additionally offer officially licensed binaries for companies, but Caddy has never deviated from Apache 2.

Caddy's ease of use is one feature, but there are many more - like the ability to massively scale your TLS to thousands of sites reliably. And to use the on-line configuration API to make changes to your server. There's a ton to discover with Caddy, it's not just a tool for beginners. ;)

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#32

Post by mholt »

eliben wrote: post #26
mholt wrote: post #9

These are fun to make. I've done it several times. :) That is why I wrote Caddy: $ caddy file-server It does templates, TLS, and other production things really easily from the command line too, including automatically getting certificates: $ caddy file-server --domain example.com Done! I think projects like static-server are wonderful learning examples of how to get Useful Things done in Go.

Thanks for the comment, Matt! I love Caddy. For some reason I thought it needs a configuration file. The simplest cmdline I found to run it as a local server on a non-priveledged port with listings is: $ caddy file-server --listen localhost:8099 --browse Is there a simpler way I'm missing?

On Mac, the defaults aren't privileged. (Not sure why. That's just how it is.)

The --browse flag is optional and unrelated to ports/privileges. Otherwise, that sounds about right. Caddy defaults to port 80 unless you give it a domain name, then it defaults to port 443 and redirects HTTP on port 80 to HTTPS.

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#33

Post by mholt »

e12e wrote: post #11
mholt wrote: post #9

These are fun to make. I've done it several times. :) That is why I wrote Caddy: $ caddy file-server It does templates, TLS, and other production things really easily from the command line too, including automatically getting certificates: $ caddy file-server --domain example.com Done! I think projects like static-server are wonderful learning examples of how to get Useful Things done in Go.

Wait, file-server without arguments does dynamic content (templating)?! I assume that's just poorly phrased?

To clarify, you do need to use --templates to enable template evaluation on the static files.

But for the `caddy respond` command, minimal templates are available by default; see the docs here: https://caddyserver.com/docs/command-line#examples

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#34

Post by mholt »

simonw wrote: post #28
abhishekjha wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there more to the philosophy of why caddy exists? I am trying to jump into a few open source projects to hone my programming skills and I have a harder time comprehending things if I don't know what was the overall intention of the authors.

One of the big selling points of Caddy for me is that you can reconfigure it "live" without restarting the server. This is great for if you want to be able to do zero-downtime deploys of new applications behind a proxy server or similar.

Absolutely! Thanks for the feedback, Simon!

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#35

Post by mholt »

abhishekjha wrote: post #16
mholt wrote: post #9

These are fun to make. I've done it several times. :) That is why I wrote Caddy: $ caddy file-server It does templates, TLS, and other production things really easily from the command line too, including automatically getting certificates: $ caddy file-server --domain example.com Done! I think projects like static-server are wonderful learning examples of how to get Useful Things done in Go.

Is there more to the philosophy of why caddy exists? I am trying to jump into a few open source projects to hone my programming skills and I have a harder time comprehending things if I don't know what was the overall intention of the authors.

Caddy 1 was created because I needed a quick and easy web server for a lot of my projects.

Caddy 2 was created when I got serious about it, and we had governments and enterprises starting to rely on the project.

Now we exist because we advocate for (and deliver!) HTTPS on every site, memory safety, dynamic configuration, extensibility, and many more features valuable in a modern web server.

Hope that helps :)

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#36

Post by eliben »

simonw wrote: post #27

This is cool - I didn't know you could have Go one-liners that look like this: go run github.com/eliben/static-server@latest I had to upgrade to Go 1.21 for this to work - I was previously on Go 1.20. "brew upgrade go" worked for me. Looks like almost the entire implementation is here, it's mostly CLI option parsing logic: https://github.com/eliben/static-server/blob/main/internal/s...

Indeed, the actual heavy lifting is done by the Go standard library; this line (https://github.com/eliben/static-server/blob/main/internal/s...) is where the real magic happens (ignoring the logging middleware):

    fileHandler := serveLogger(serveLog, http.FileServer(http.Dir(rootDir)))

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#39

Post by badrequest »

gabereiser wrote: post #2

While I love Go, have we gotten this lazy that we need a package for this? Go does this in 3 lines minimum, like you describe in your blogpost. However, in your package you expose the ability to kill your server [0] without any security. That’s a huge vulnerability. I know you’ll say “It’s just a static server, meant for serving static stuff” but it will be indexed by pkg.go.dev, people will use this outside your int…

People are allowed to write code/tools that are useful to only themselves. They're also allowed to post about these tools. Nobody is going to make you use them.

Re: static-server: an HTTP server in Go for static content

#40

Post by mnstngr »

mholt wrote: post #9

These are fun to make. I've done it several times. :) That is why I wrote Caddy: $ caddy file-server It does templates, TLS, and other production things really easily from the command line too, including automatically getting certificates: $ caddy file-server --domain example.com Done! I think projects like static-server are wonderful learning examples of how to get Useful Things done in Go.

Thank you for Caddy! Going from a complex nginx setup to the delight that's the Caddyfile was a breeze.

And a special call-out to your dedication to providing amazing documentation. Caddy is what all projects should aspire to be.

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