Holo

Basic HTTP server for local hosting.
Copyright © 2024 Chris Roberts (Krobbizoid).

Contents

1. Usage
   • Arguments
   • Options
   • Examples
2. Limitations
3. Dependencies
4. License

Usage

Holo is a basic HTTP server targeted at serving local files for testing. Because of its focus on simplicity and privacy, it has some limitations that may prevent it from doing what you want it to do.

Build Holo with cargo build --release and move the executable from target/release/holo(.exe) to a directory with environment access. After this you can use Holo from the command line:

holo [OPTIONS] [root]

By default, Holo will serve files from the current working directory at http://localhost:8080/. Holo will continue running until Ctrl+C is used to exit.

Arguments

Argument	Usage
[root]	Server root directory [default: .]

Holo can be given an optional argument representing the path to serve files from. The path must be an existing directory. If no path is given, the current working directory will be used.

Options

Short	Long	Arguments	Usage
-p	--port	<port>	TCP port [default: 8080]
-i	--index	(None)	Serve automatic index pages
-c	--cors	(None)	Enable cross-origin resource sharing
-h	--help	(None)	Print help
-V	--version	(None)	Print version

If the --port option is not set, the default port of 8080 will be used. Ports below 1024 are likely to be reserved or require administrator privileges.

If the --index flag is set, an automatic index page listing directories and files will be served when a directory without an index.html file is requested. If the flag is not set, a 404 page will be served instead.

If the --cors flag is set, resources from outside the host machine will be allowed in webpages, but some JavaScript features will be disabled.

If the --help or --version flags are set, Holo will print information but not perform any action.

Examples

Serve files in the current working directory on port 8080:

holo

Serve files in etc/builds/web/ on port 8080:

holo etc/builds/web/

Serve files in files/ on port 8080 with automatic index pages:

holo files -i

Serve files in C:\htdocs\ on port 80 with cross-origin resources:

holo C:\htdocs -p 80 -c

Limitations

• Clients from outside the host machine will only be served 403 pages. This is an intentional design choice to improve privacy. An option to open servers to LAN or the internet is being considered.
• Holo does not support HTTPS or any kind of content encoding.
• Holo runs on a single thread. HTTP requests are queued up and must be handled one at a time.
• Request methods and headers are ignored.

Dependencies

Holo uses the following libraries:

• clap - Command line argument parsing.
• new_mime_guess - Media type inference.
• percent-encoding - URL encoding and decoding.

License

Holo is released under the MIT License:
https://krobbi.github.io/license/2024/mit.txt

See LICENSE.txt for a full copy of the license text.