serve-https

A simple HTTPS static file server with valid TLS (SSL) certs.

Comes bundled a valid certificate for localhost.daplie.com, which is great for testing and development, and you can specify your own.

Also great for testing ACME certs from letsencrypt.org.

Install

npm install --global serve-https
serve-https

Serving /Users/foo/ at https://localhost.daplie.com:8443

Usage

• -p <port> - i.e. sudo serve-https -p 443 (defaults to 80+443 or 8443)
• -d <dirpath> - i.e. serve-https -d /tmp/ (defaults to pwd)
• -c <content> - i.e. server-https -c 'Hello, World! ' (defaults to directory index)
• --express-app - path to a file the exports an express-style app (function (req, res, next) { ... })
• --livereload - inject livereload into all html pages (see also: fswatch), but be careful if <dirpath> has thousands of files it will spike your CPU usage to 100%

Specifying a custom HTTPS certificate:

• --key /path/to/privkey.pem specifies the server private key
• --cert /path/to/fullchain.pem specifies the bundle of server certificate and all intermediate certificates
• --root /path/to/root.pem specifies the certificate authority(ies)

Note: --root may specify single cert or a bundle, and may be used multiple times like so:

--root /path/to/primary-root.pem --root /path/to/cross-root.pem

Other options:

• --serve-root true alias for -c with the contents of root.pem
• --servername example.com changes the servername logged to the console
• --letsencrypt-certs example.com sets and key, fullchain, and root to standard letsencrypt locations

Examples

serve-https -p 1443 -c 'Hello from 1443' &
serve-https -p 2443 -c 'Hello from 2443' &
serve-https -p 3443 -d /tmp &

curl https://localhost.daplie.com:1443
> Hello from 1443

curl --insecure https://localhost:2443
> Hello from 2443

curl https://localhost.daplie.com:3443
> [html index listing of /tmp]

And if you tested http://localhost.daplie.com:3443 in a browser, it would redirect to https://localhost.daplie.com:3443 (on the same port).

(in curl it would just show an error message)

Testing ACME Let's Encrypt certs

In case you didn't know, you can get free https certificates from letsencrypt.org (ACME letsencrypt) and even a free subdomain from https://freedns.afraid.org.

If you want to quickly test the certificates you installed, you can do so like this:

sudo serve-https -p 8443 \
  --letsencrypt-certs test.mooo.com \
  --serve-root true

which is equilavent to

sudo serve-https -p 8443 \
  --servername test.mooo.com
  --key /etc/letsencrypt/live/test.mooo.com/privkey.pem \
  --cert /etc/letsencrypt/live/test.mooo.com/fullchain.pem \
  --root /etc/letsencrypt/live/test.mooo.com/root.pem \
  -c "$(cat 'sudo /etc/letsencrypt/live/test.mooo.com/root.pem')"

and can be tested like so

curl --insecure https://test.mooo.com:8443 > ./root.pem
curl https://test.mooo.com:8843 --cacert ./root.pem

• QuickStart Guide for Let's Encrypt
• QuickStart Guide for FreeDNS