miniserve

miniserve is a cross-platform command-line HTTP file server written in Rust on top of Actix. It ships as a single binary with no extra dependencies and serves a directory or a single file with one command, for example miniserve linux-distro-collection/ or miniserve linux-distro.iso. It generates a browsable file listing with correct MIME type handling, range request support, and optional README.md rendering.

Beyond static serving, it supports basic authentication with plain or hashed passwords (username:sha256:hash, sha512) and credentials read from a file via --auth-file. It also supports TLS with --tls-cert and --tls-key, custom response headers, a random route prefix (--random-route), binding to multiple interfaces, and an SPA mode (--spa --index index.html) that forwards unknown paths to the index file. Pretty URLs mode, WebDAV, and a healthcheck route at /__miniserve_internal/healthcheck are also documented.

It can also receive data. -u enables file uploads, optionally restricted to specific directories, and --mkdir allows directory creation, both usable from the web UI or via curl -F. Directories can be downloaded compressed on the fly as .tar.gz or .zip. Listings can be filtered with a ?search= query parameter, rendered minimally with ?raw=true for text browsers such as lynx or w3m, and given a copy-pastable wget footer with --show-wget-footer. Other options include a QR code for quick access from a phone (-q), light and dark color schemes, sorting options, and shell completions.

Typical users are developers and sysadmins who need to share files on a local network, serve a build or SPA for testing, or accept uploads without configuring a full web server.

Installation

# via Homebrew
brew install miniserve