ws

A nimble web server

ws is a prototyping platform for websites.

ws started as a nimble static content web server.
It supports an init option which generates a project directory structure, creates self signed SSL keys and displays suggested environment variables for use with ws. If the directory structure already exists it will display the suggest setup.

Requirements

• Golang version 1.7.1 or better

Setup

ws is “go gettable”

    go get github.com/rsdoiel/ws/...

compiling from source

Here’s my basic approach to get things setup. I assume you’ve got Golang already installed.

• ws a nimple webserver for static content
  • Built on Golangs native http/https modules
  • Restricted file service, only from the docroot and no “dot files” are served
  • No dynamic content support
  • Quick startup, everything logged to console for easy debugging or piping to a log processor

  git clone https://github.com/rsdoiel/ws $HOME/src/github.com/rsdoiel/ws
  cd $HOME/src/github.com/rsdoiel/ws
  go test
  go build
  go build cmds/ws/ws.go

If everything compiles fine then I do something like this–

  go install cmds/ws/ws.go

Compiled versions

You can also grab one of the precompiled version at https://github.com/rsdoiel/ws/releases/latest

features

• http/https protocols
• static file server
• a project setup option called init

ws init takes three actions

• create a basic site directory structure (e.g. htdocs, etc) if needed
• creates self signed SSL certificates (e.g. etc/site.key, etc/site.pem) if appropriate
• suggests environment variable settings (e.g like you might put in etc/setup.conf)

Configuration

Configuration for ws can be passed directly from environment variables. That makes them container friendly. The environment can be overwritten by command line options.

The standard set of environment variables are

• WS_URL the URL to listen for by ws
  • default is http://localhost:8000
• WS_DOCROOT the directory of your static content you need to serve
  • the default is . (your current directory)
• WS_SSL_KEY the path the the SSL key file (e.g. etc/ssl/site.key)
  • default is empty, only checked if your WS_URL is starts with https://
• WS_SSL_CERT the path the the SSL cert file (e.g. etc/ssl/site.crt)
  • default is empty, only checked if your WS_URL is starts with https://

command line options

• -u, -url overrides WS_URL
• -d, -docs overrides WS_DOCROOT
• -k, -key overrides WS_SSL_KEY
• -c, -cert overrides WS_SSL_CERT
• -i, -init triggers the initialization process
• -h, -help displays the help documentation
• -v, -version display the version of the command
• -l, -license display software license