[node.js] Using node.js as a simple web server

I want to run a very simple HTTP server. Every GET request to example.com should get index.html served to it but as a regular HTML page (i.e., same experience as when you read normal web pages).

Using the code below, I can read the content of index.html. How do I serve index.html as a regular web page?

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
var index = fs.readFileSync('index.html');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  res.end(index);
}).listen(9615);

One suggestion below is complicated and requires me to write a get line for each resource (CSS, JavaScript, images) file I want to use.

How can I serve a single HTML page with some images, CSS and JavaScript?

Rather than dealing with a switch statement, I think it's neater to lookup the content type from a dictionary:

var contentTypesByExtension = {
    'html': "text/html",
    'js':   "text/javascript"
};

...

    var contentType = contentTypesByExtension[fileExtension] || 'text/plain';

A slightly more verbose express 4.x version but that provides directory listing, compression, caching and requests logging in a minimal number of lines

var express = require('express');
var compress = require('compression');
var directory = require('serve-index');
var morgan = require('morgan'); //logging for express

var app = express();

var oneDay = 86400000;

app.use(compress());
app.use(morgan());
app.use(express.static('filesdir', { maxAge: oneDay }));
app.use(directory('filesdir', {'icons': true}))

app.listen(process.env.PORT || 8000);

console.log("Ready To serve files !")

The way I do it is to first of all install node static server globally via

npm install node-static -g

then navigate to the directory that contains your html files and start the static server with static.

Go to the browser and type localhost:8080/"yourHtmlFile".

You don't need express. You don't need connect. Node.js does http NATIVELY. All you need to do is return a file dependent on the request:

var http = require('http')
var url = require('url')
var fs = require('fs')

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
    var requestUrl = url.parse(request.url)    
    response.writeHead(200)
    fs.createReadStream(requestUrl.pathname).pipe(response)  // do NOT use fs's sync methods ANYWHERE on production (e.g readFileSync) 
}).listen(9615)    

A more full example that ensures requests can't access files underneath a base-directory, and does proper error handling:

var http = require('http')
var url = require('url')
var fs = require('fs')
var path = require('path')
var baseDirectory = __dirname   // or whatever base directory you want

var port = 9615

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
    try {
        var requestUrl = url.parse(request.url)

        // need to use path.normalize so people can't access directories underneath baseDirectory
        var fsPath = baseDirectory+path.normalize(requestUrl.pathname)

        var fileStream = fs.createReadStream(fsPath)
        fileStream.pipe(response)
        fileStream.on('open', function() {
             response.writeHead(200)
        })
        fileStream.on('error',function(e) {
             response.writeHead(404)     // assume the file doesn't exist
             response.end()
        })
   } catch(e) {
        response.writeHead(500)
        response.end()     // end the response so browsers don't hang
        console.log(e.stack)
   }
}).listen(port)

console.log("listening on port "+port)

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
var index = fs.readFileSync('index.html');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'html'});
res.end(index);
}).listen(9615);

//Just Change The CONTENT TYPE to 'html'

I can also recommend SugoiJS, it is very easy to set up and gives an option to start writing fast and has great features.

Take a look here to get started: http://demo.sugoijs.com/ , documentation: https://wiki.sugoijs.com/

It has request handling decorators, request policies and authorization policies decorators.

For example:

import {Controller,Response,HttpGet,RequestParam} from "@sugoi/server";
?
@Controller('/dashboard')
export class CoreController{
    constructor(){}
?
    @HttpGet("/:role")
    test(@RequestParam('role') role:string,
         @RequestHeader("role") headerRole:string){
        if(role === headerRole )
            return "authorized";
        else{
            throw new Error("unauthorized")
        }
    }
}

Is very easy with the tons of libraries presents today. Answers here are functional. If you want another version for start faster and simple

Of course first install node.js. Later:

> # module with zero dependencies
> npm install -g @kawix/core@latest 
> # change /path/to/static with your folder or empty for current
> kwcore "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/voxsoftware/kawix-core/master/example/npmrequire/express-static.js" /path/to/static

Here the content of "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/voxsoftware/kawix-core/master/example/npmrequire/express-static.js" (you don't need download it, i posted for understand how works behind)

// you can use like this:
// kwcore "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/voxsoftware/kawix-core/master/example/npmrequire/express.js" /path/to/static
// kwcore "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/voxsoftware/kawix-core/master/example/npmrequire/express.js" 

// this will download the npm module and make a local cache
import express from 'npm://express@^4.16.4'
import Path from 'path'

var folder= process.argv[2] || "."
folder= Path.resolve(process.cwd(), folder)
console.log("Using folder as public: " + folder)

var app = express() 
app.use(express.static(folder)) 
app.listen(8181)
console.log("Listening on 8181")

Basically copying the accepted answer, but avoiding creating a js file.

$ node
> var connect = require('connect'); connect().use(static('.')).listen(8000);

Found it very convinient.

Update

As of latest version of Express, serve-static has become a separate middleware. Use this to serve:

require('http').createServer(require('serve-static')('.')).listen(3000)

Install serve-static first.

Most of the answers above describe very nicely how contents are being served. What I was looking as additional was listing of the directory so that other contents of the directory can be browsed. Here is my solution for further readers:

'use strict';

var finalhandler = require('finalhandler');
var http = require('http');
var serveIndex = require('serve-index');
var serveStatic = require('serve-static');
var appRootDir = require('app-root-dir').get();
var log = require(appRootDir + '/log/bunyan.js');

var PORT = process.env.port || 8097;

// Serve directory indexes for reports folder (with icons)
var index = serveIndex('reports/', {'icons': true});

// Serve up files under the folder
var serve = serveStatic('reports/');

// Create server
var server = http.createServer(function onRequest(req, res){
    var done = finalhandler(req, res);
    serve(req, res, function onNext(err) {
    if (err)
        return done(err);
    index(req, res, done);
    })
});


server.listen(PORT, log.info('Server listening on: ', PORT));

I think the part you're missing right now is that you're sending:

Content-Type: text/plain

If you want a web browser to render the HTML, you should change this to:

Content-Type: text/html

There are already some great solutions for a simple nodejs server. There is a one more solution if you need live-reloading as you made changes to your files.

npm install lite-server -g

navigate your directory and do

lite-server

it will open browser for you with live-reloading.

Note: This answer is from 2011. However, it is still valid.

You can use Connect and ServeStatic with Node.js for this:

1. Install connect and serve-static with NPM

    $ npm install connect serve-static
   

2. Create server.js file with this content:

    var connect = require('connect');
    var serveStatic = require('serve-static');
   
    connect()
        .use(serveStatic(__dirname))
        .listen(8080, () => console.log('Server running on 8080...'));
   

3. Run with Node.js

    $ node server.js
   

You can now go to http://localhost:8080/yourfile.html

You can just type those in your shell

npx serve

Repo: https://github.com/zeit/serve.

Check out this gist. I'm reproducing it here for reference, but the gist has been regularly updated.

Node.JS static file web server. Put it in your path to fire up servers in any directory, takes an optional port argument.

var http = require("http"),
    url = require("url"),
    path = require("path"),
    fs = require("fs"),
    port = process.argv[2] || 8888;

http.createServer(function(request, response) {

  var uri = url.parse(request.url).pathname
    , filename = path.join(process.cwd(), uri);

  fs.exists(filename, function(exists) {
    if(!exists) {
      response.writeHead(404, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
      response.write("404 Not Found\n");
      response.end();
      return;
    }

    if (fs.statSync(filename).isDirectory()) filename += '/index.html';

    fs.readFile(filename, "binary", function(err, file) {
      if(err) {        
        response.writeHead(500, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
        response.write(err + "\n");
        response.end();
        return;
      }

      response.writeHead(200);
      response.write(file, "binary");
      response.end();
    });
  });
}).listen(parseInt(port, 10));

console.log("Static file server running at\n  => http://localhost:" + port + "/\nCTRL + C to shutdown");

Update

The gist does handle css and js files. I've used it myself. Using read/write in "binary" mode isn't a problem. That just means that the file isn't interpreted as text by the file library and is unrelated to content-type returned in the response.

The problem with your code is you're always returning a content-type of "text/plain". The above code does not return any content-type, but if you're just using it for HTML, CSS, and JS, a browser can infer those just fine. No content-type is better than a wrong one.

Normally the content-type is a configuration of your web server. So I'm sorry if this doesn't solve your problem, but it worked for me as a simple development server and thought it might help some other people. If you do need correct content-types in the response, you either need to explicitly define them as joeytwiddle has or use a library like Connect that has sensible defaults. The nice thing about this is that it's simple and self-contained (no dependencies).

But I do feel your issue. So here is the combined solution.

var http = require("http"),
    url = require("url"),
    path = require("path"),
    fs = require("fs")
    port = process.argv[2] || 8888;

http.createServer(function(request, response) {

  var uri = url.parse(request.url).pathname
    , filename = path.join(process.cwd(), uri);

  var contentTypesByExtension = {
    '.html': "text/html",
    '.css':  "text/css",
    '.js':   "text/javascript"
  };

  fs.exists(filename, function(exists) {
    if(!exists) {
      response.writeHead(404, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
      response.write("404 Not Found\n");
      response.end();
      return;
    }

    if (fs.statSync(filename).isDirectory()) filename += '/index.html';

    fs.readFile(filename, "binary", function(err, file) {
      if(err) {        
        response.writeHead(500, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
        response.write(err + "\n");
        response.end();
        return;
      }

      var headers = {};
      var contentType = contentTypesByExtension[path.extname(filename)];
      if (contentType) headers["Content-Type"] = contentType;
      response.writeHead(200, headers);
      response.write(file, "binary");
      response.end();
    });
  });
}).listen(parseInt(port, 10));

console.log("Static file server running at\n  => http://localhost:" + port + "/\nCTRL + C to shutdown");

Crazy amount of complicated answers here. If you don't intend to process nodeJS files/database but just want to serve static html/css/js/images as your question suggest then simply install the pushstate-server module or similar;

Here's a "one liner" that will create and launch a mini site. Simply paste that entire block in your terminal in the appropriate directory.

mkdir mysite; \
cd mysite; \
npm install pushstate-server --save; \
mkdir app; \
touch app/index.html; \
echo '<h1>Hello World</h1>' > app/index.html; \
touch server.js; \
echo "var server = require('pushstate-server');server.start({ port: 3000, directory: './app' });" > server.js; \
node server.js

Open browser and go to http://localhost:3000. Done.

The server will use the app dir as the root to serve files from. To add additional assets just place them inside that directory.

Express function sendFile does exactly what you need, and since you want web server functionality from node, express comes as natural choice and then serving static files becomes as easy as :

res.sendFile('/path_to_your/index.html')

read more here : https://expressjs.com/en/api.html#res.sendFile

A small example with express web server for node:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var path = require('path');

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
    res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname + '/index.html'));
});

app.listen(8080);

run this, and navigate to http://localhost:8080

To expand on this to allow you to serve static files like css and images, here's another example :

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var path = require('path');

app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/css'));

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
    res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname + '/index.html'));
});

app.listen(8080);

so create a subfolder called css, put your static content in it, and it will be available to your index.html for easy reference like :

<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="/css/style.css" />

Notice relative path in href!

voila!

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you wanted, however, you can try changing:

{'Content-Type': 'text/plain'}

to this:

{'Content-Type': 'text/html'}

This will have the browser client display the file as html instead of plain text.

Node.js webserver from scratch

No 3rd-party frameworks; Allows query string; Adds trailing slash; Handles 404

Create a public_html subfolder and place all of your content in it.

Gist: https://gist.github.com/veganaize/fc3b9aa393ca688a284c54caf43a3fc3

var fs = require('fs');

require('http').createServer(function(request, response) {
  var path = 'public_html'+ request.url.slice(0,
      (request.url.indexOf('?')+1 || request.url.length+1) - 1);
      
  fs.stat(path, function(bad_path, path_stat) {
    if (bad_path) respond(404);
    else if (path_stat.isDirectory() && path.slice(-1) !== '/') {
      response.setHeader('Location', path.slice(11)+'/');
      respond(301);
    } else fs.readFile(path.slice(-1)==='/' ? path+'index.html' : path,
          function(bad_file, file_content) {
      if (bad_file) respond(404);
      else respond(200, file_content);
    });
  });
 
  function respond(status, content) {
    response.statusCode = status;
    response.end(content);
  }
}).listen(80, function(){console.log('Server running on port 80...')});

local-web-server is definitely worth a look! Here's an excerpt from the readme:

local-web-server

A lean, modular web server for rapid full-stack development.

• Supports HTTP, HTTPS and HTTP2.
• Small and 100% personalisable. Load and use only the behaviour required by your project.
• Attach a custom view to personalise how activity is visualised.
• Programmatic and command-line interfaces.

Use this tool to:

• Build any type of front-end web application (static, dynamic, Single Page App, Progessive Web App, React etc).
• Prototype a back-end service (REST API, microservice, websocket, Server Sent Events service etc).
• Monitor activity, analyse performance, experiment with caching strategy etc.

Local-web-server is a distribution of lws bundled with a "starter pack" of useful middleware.

Synopsis

This package installs the ws command-line tool (take a look at the usage guide).

Static web site

Running ws without any arguments will host the current directory as a static web site. Navigating to the server will render a directory listing or your index.html, if that file exists.

$ ws
Listening on http://mbp.local:8000, http://127.0.0.1:8000, http://192.168.0.100:8000

Static files tutorial.

This clip demonstrates static hosting plus a couple of log output formats - dev and stats.

Single Page Application

Serving a Single Page Application (an app with client-side routing, e.g. a React or Angular app) is as trivial as specifying the name of your single page:

$ ws --spa index.html

With a static site, requests for typical SPA paths (e.g. /user/1, /login) would return 404 Not Found as a file at that location does not exist. However, by marking index.html as the SPA you create this rule:

If a static file is requested (e.g. /css/style.css) then serve it, if not (e.g. /login) then serve the specified SPA and handle the route client-side.

SPA tutorial.

URL rewriting and proxied requests

Another common use case is to forward certain requests to a remote server.

The following command proxies blog post requests from any path beginning with /posts/ to https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/. For example, a request for /posts/1 would be proxied to https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1.

$ ws --rewrite '/posts/(.*) -> https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/$1'

Rewrite tutorial.

This clip demonstrates the above plus use of --static.extensions to specify a default file extension and --verbose to monitor activity.

HTTPS and HTTP2

For HTTPS or HTTP2, pass the --https or --http2 flags respectively. See the wiki for further configuration options and a guide on how to get the "green padlock" in your browser.

$ lws --http2
Listening at https://mba4.local:8000, https://127.0.0.1:8000, https://192.168.0.200:8000

Edit:

Node.js sample app Node Chat has the functionality you want.
In it's README.textfile
3. Step is what you are looking for.

step1

• create a server that responds with hello world on port 8002

step2

• create an index.html and serve it

step3

• introduce util.js
• change the logic so that any static file is served
• show 404 in case no file is found

step4

• add jquery-1.4.2.js
• add client.js
• change index.html to prompt user for nickname

Here is the server.js

Here is the util.js

This is basically an updated version of the accepted answer for connect version 3:

var connect = require('connect');
var serveStatic = require('serve-static');

var app = connect();

app.use(serveStatic(__dirname, {'index': ['index.html']}));
app.listen(3000);

I also added a default option so that index.html is served as a default.

The simpler version which I've came across is as following. For education purposes, it is best, because it does not use any abstract libraries.

var http = require('http'),
url = require('url'),
path = require('path'),
fs = require('fs');

var mimeTypes = {
  "html": "text/html",
  "mp3":"audio/mpeg",
  "mp4":"video/mp4",
  "jpeg": "image/jpeg",
  "jpg": "image/jpeg",
  "png": "image/png",
  "js": "text/javascript",
  "css": "text/css"};

http.createServer(function(req, res) {
    var uri = url.parse(req.url).pathname;
    var filename = path.join(process.cwd(), uri);
    fs.exists(filename, function(exists) {
        if(!exists) {
            console.log("not exists: " + filename);
            res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
            res.write('404 Not Found\n');
            res.end();
            return;
        }
        var mimeType = mimeTypes[path.extname(filename).split(".")[1]];
        res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type':mimeType});

        var fileStream = fs.createReadStream(filename);
        fileStream.pipe(res);

    }); //end path.exists
}).listen(1337);

Now go to browser and open following:

http://127.0.0.1/image.jpg

Here image.jpg should be in same directory as this file. Hope this helps someone :)

from w3schools

it is pretty easy to create a node server to serve any file that is requested, and you dont need to install any packages for it

var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');
var fs = require('fs');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  var q = url.parse(req.url, true);
  var filename = "." + q.pathname;
  fs.readFile(filename, function(err, data) {
    if (err) {
      res.writeHead(404, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
      return res.end("404 Not Found");
    }  
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
    res.write(data);
    return res.end();
  });
}).listen(8080);

http://localhost:8080/file.html

will serve file.html from disk

Simplest Node.js server is just:

$ npm install http-server -g

Now you can run a server via the following commands:

$ cd MyApp

$ http-server

If you're using NPM 5.2.0 or newer, you can use http-server without installing it with npx. This isn't recommended for use in production but is a great way to quickly get a server running on localhost.

$ npx http-server

Or, you can try this, which opens your web browser and enables CORS requests:

$ http-server -o --cors

For more options, check out the documentation for http-server on GitHub, or run:

$ http-server --help

Lots of other nice features and brain-dead-simple deployment to NodeJitsu.

Feature Forks

Of course, you can easily top up the features with your own fork. You might find it's already been done in one of the existing 800+ forks of this project:

• https://github.com/nodeapps/http-server/network

Light Server: An Auto Refreshing Alternative

A nice alternative to http-server is light-server. It supports file watching and auto-refreshing and many other features.

$ npm install -g light-server 
$ light-server

Add to your directory context menu in Windows Explorer

 reg.exe add HKCR\Directory\shell\LightServer\command /ve /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /f /d "\"C:\nodejs\light-server.cmd\" \"-o\" \"-s\" \"%V\""

Simple JSON REST server

If you need to create a simple REST server for a prototype project then json-server might be what you're looking for.

Auto Refreshing Editors

Most web page editors and IDE tools now include a web server that will watch your source files and auto refresh your web page when they change.

I use Live Server with Visual Studio Code.

The open source text editor Brackets also includes a NodeJS static web server. Just open any HTML file in Brackets, press "Live Preview" and it starts a static server and opens your browser at the page. The browser will **auto refresh whenever you edit and save the HTML file. This especially useful when testing adaptive web sites. Open your HTML page on multiple browsers/window sizes/devices. Save your HTML page and instantly see if your adaptive stuff is working as they all auto refresh.

PhoneGap Developers

If you're coding a hybrid mobile app, you may be interested to know that the PhoneGap team took this auto refresh concept on board with their new PhoneGap App. This is a generic mobile app that can load the HTML5 files from a server during development. This is a very slick trick since now you can skip the slow compile/deploy steps in your development cycle for hybrid mobile apps if you're changing JS/CSS/HTML files — which is what you're doing most of the time. They also provide the static NodeJS web server (run phonegap serve) that detects file changes.

PhoneGap + Sencha Touch Developers

I've now extensively adapted the PhoneGap static server & PhoneGap Developer App for Sencha Touch & jQuery Mobile developers. Check it out at Sencha Touch Live. Supports --qr QR Codes and --localtunnel that proxies your static server from your desktop computer to a URL outside your firewall! Tons of uses. Massive speedup for hybrid mobile devs.

Cordova + Ionic Framework Developers

Local server and auto refresh features are baked into the ionic tool. Just run ionic serve from your app folder. Even better ... ionic serve --lab to view auto-refreshing side by side views of both iOS and Android.

Step1 (inside command prompt [I hope you cd TO YOUR FOLDER]) : npm install express

Step 2: Create a file server.js

var fs = require("fs");
var host = "127.0.0.1";
var port = 1337;
var express = require("express");

var app = express();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + "/public")); //use static files in ROOT/public folder

app.get("/", function(request, response){ //root dir
    response.send("Hello!!");
});

app.listen(port, host);

Please note, you should add WATCHFILE (or use nodemon) too. Above code is only for a simple connection server.

STEP 3: node server.js or nodemon server.js

There is now more easy method if you just want host simple HTTP server. npm install -g http-server

and open our directory and type http-server

https://www.npmjs.org/package/http-server

This is one of the fastest solutions i use to quickly see web pages

sudo npm install ripple-emulator -g

From then on just enter the directory of your html files and run

ripple emulate

then change the device to Nexus 7 landscape.

You don't need to use any NPM modules to run a simple server, there's a very tiny library called "NPM Free Server" for Node:

• NPM Free Server on GitHub

50 lines of code, outputs if you are requesting a file or a folder and gives it a red or green color if it failed for worked. Less than 1KB in size (minified).

The fast way:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use('/', express.static(__dirname + '/../public')); // ? adjust
app.listen(3000, function() { console.log('listening'); });

Your way:

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    console.dir(req.url);

    // will get you  '/' or 'index.html' or 'css/styles.css' ...
    // • you need to isolate extension
    // • have a small mimetype lookup array/object
    // • only there and then reading the file
    // •  delivering it after setting the right content type

    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});

    res.end('ok');
}).listen(3001);

I use below code to start a simple web server which render default html file if no file mentioned in Url.

var http = require('http'),
fs = require('fs'),
url = require('url'),
rootFolder = '/views/',
defaultFileName = '/views/5 Tips on improving Programming Logic   Geek Files.htm';


http.createServer(function(req, res){

    var fileName = url.parse(req.url).pathname;
    // If no file name in Url, use default file name
    fileName = (fileName == "/") ? defaultFileName : rootFolder + fileName;

    fs.readFile(__dirname + decodeURIComponent(fileName), 'binary',function(err, content){
        if (content != null && content != '' ){
            res.writeHead(200,{'Content-Length':content.length});
            res.write(content);
        }
        res.end();
    });

}).listen(8800);

It will render all js, css and image file, along with all html content.

Agree on statement "No content-type is better than a wrong one"

if you have node installed on you PC probably you have the NPM, if you don't need NodeJS stuff, you can use the serve package for this:

1 - Install the package on your PC:

npm install -g serve

2 - Serve your static folder:

serve <path> 
d:> serve d:\StaticSite

It will show you which port your static folder is being served, just navigate to the host like:

http://localhost:3000

I found a interesting library on npm that might be of some use to you. It's called mime(npm install mime or https://github.com/broofa/node-mime) and it can determine the mime type of a file. Here's an example of a webserver I wrote using it:

var mime = require("mime"),http = require("http"),fs = require("fs");
http.createServer(function (req, resp) {
path  = unescape(__dirname + req.url)
var code = 200
 if(fs.existsSync(path)) {
    if(fs.lstatSync(path).isDirectory()) {
        if(fs.existsSync(path+"index.html")) {
        path += "index.html"
        } else {
            code = 403
            resp.writeHead(code, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"});
            resp.end(code+" "+http.STATUS_CODES[code]+" "+req.url);
        }
    }
    resp.writeHead(code, {"Content-Type": mime.lookup(path)})
    fs.readFile(path, function (e, r) {
    resp.end(r);

})
} else {
    code = 404
    resp.writeHead(code, {"Content-Type":"text/plain"});
    resp.end(code+" "+http.STATUS_CODES[code]+" "+req.url);
}
console.log("GET "+code+" "+http.STATUS_CODES[code]+" "+req.url)
}).listen(9000,"localhost");
console.log("Listening at http://localhost:9000")

This will serve any regular text or image file (.html, .css, .js, .pdf, .jpg, .png, .m4a and .mp3 are the extensions I've tested, but it theory it should work for everything)

Developer Notes

Here is an example of output that I got with it:

Listening at http://localhost:9000
GET 200 OK /cloud
GET 404 Not Found /cloud/favicon.ico
GET 200 OK /cloud/icon.png
GET 200 OK /
GET 200 OK /501.png
GET 200 OK /cloud/manifest.json
GET 200 OK /config.log
GET 200 OK /export1.png
GET 200 OK /Chrome3DGlasses.pdf
GET 200 OK /cloud
GET 200 OK /-1
GET 200 OK /Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg

Notice the unescape function in the path construction. This is to allow for filenames with spaces and encoded characters.

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
var index = fs.readFileSync('index.html');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
    // change the to 'text/plain' to 'text/html' it will work as your index page
    res.end(index);
}).listen(9615);

I think you where searching for this. In your index.html, simply fill it with normal html code - whatever you want to render on it, like:

<html>
    <h1>Hello world</h1>
</html>