Quickest way to host a single file on VPS?

plumberg

Hey folks, I have to host a single file on my vps... 1GB or less. No authentication... LetsEncrypt SSL will be good to serve it.

What will be a quick way to spin off a webserver? The VPS run Debian/ Centos.

DP

SimpleHTTPServer?

dahartigan

@DP said:
SimpleHTTPServer?

I'll elaborate

Install python and run in the directory you want to serve from:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080

Where 8080 is the port it will listen on.

DP

@dahartigan said:

@DP said:
SimpleHTTPServer?

I'll elaborate

Install python and run in the directory you want to serve from:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080

Where 8080 is the port it will listen on.

Then there's also python3 -m http.server 8080 or whatever port you'd like that's not used.

loyd

Assuming root, Debian/Ubuntu no SSL

apt install nginx
mv file-to-host /var/www/html

If you want to add SSL with LetsEncrypt certificate:

apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default # change server_name to domain.tld
certbot --nginx -d domain.tld # follow prompts

Done.

Alternatively a 1-liner to install full OpenLiteSpeed+PHP+MariaDB stack:

wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/litespeedtech/ols1clk/master/ols1clk.sh | bash
mv file-to-host /usr/local/lsws/Example/html

The default website comes with self-signed SSL.

ehhthing

Caddy.

raindog308

@plumberg said: I have to host a single file on my vps

Depending on what you're doing, it may be easier to put it on Github, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. and share a link rather than have a vps, webserver, etc. just for a single file.

plumberg

@DP said:

@dahartigan said:

@DP said:
SimpleHTTPServer?

I'll elaborate

Install python and run in the directory you want to serve from:

python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8080

Where 8080 is the port it will listen on.

Then there's also python3 -m http.server 8080 or whatever port you'd like that's not used.

Just to add, one needs to enable the port on firewall

plumberg

@raindog308 said:

@plumberg said: I have to host a single file on my vps

Depending on what you're doing, it may be easier to put it on Github, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. and share a link rather than have a vps, webserver, etc. just for a single file.

Yes. Had a couple idlers. Thought to put them to some use 😎

raindog308

@plumberg said: Yes. Had a couple idlers.

dahartigan

@plumberg said:

@raindog308 said:

@plumberg said: I have to host a single file on my vps

Depending on what you're doing, it may be easier to put it on Github, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. and share a link rather than have a vps, webserver, etc. just for a single file.

Yes. Had a couple idlers. Thought to put them to some use 😎

This problem intensifies when you have a dedicated server with a /29 and you only really need 1 IP.. idling IPs isn't fun, so I've just (in the last 5 mins) created a VPS with one of them idling IPs to dump files on - similar to what you're doing here I guess.

dimqua

There are webservers that support Let's Encrypt out of the box. Such as Caddy.

farsighter

rclone can easily do all. Serving, SSL, authentication, BW limits and much more.
It's better than SimpleHTTPServer which is limited to a single connection at a time.

I can post some examples later if anyone needs.

devlopesbernardo

Assuming debian:

wget https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy/releases/download/v2.4.5/caddy_2.4.5_linux_s390x.deb

dpkg -i caddy_2.4.5_linux_s390x.deb

caddy file-server /path/to/file

optionally --listen :port

plumberg

@farsighter said:
rclone can easily do all. Serving, SSL, authentication, BW limits and much more.
It's better than SimpleHTTPServer which is limited to a single connection at a time.

I can post some examples later if anyone needs.

Interesting. Can you please share details?

yoursunny

@plumberg said:

@farsighter said:
rclone can easily do all. Serving, SSL, authentication, BW limits and much more.
It's better than SimpleHTTPServer which is limited to a single connection at a time.

I can post some examples later if anyone needs.

Interesting. Can you please share details?

https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_http/

farsighter

@plumberg said:
Interesting. Can you please share details?

rclone is a fantastic tool which lets you (among many other things) serve local files. You won't need any cloud provider (aka 'remote') or other preparations in order to use the following examples for your goal. Just 'apt-get install rclone'.

Now I'll give you some examples to play with.

The following command will simply serve files from current directory over HTTP on port 8080 :
rclone serve http --addr :8080 . &
You can replace that dot with any full path of course. Access from http://IP:8080/

If you want to serve only a specific file from current directory over HTTP on port 8080, do like this:
rclone serve http --addr :8080 ./filename.ext &

The following one will serve files from current directory over HTTPS + authentication on port 8080:
rclone serve http --user username --pass password --cert /path/to/certificate.pem --key /path/to/key.pem --addr :8080 . &
Access from https://IP:8080/.
(Just remove --user and --pass flags if you only require SSL without authentication).

The above 3 commands will simply serve your file/s as directory listing which may be enough for you, but some people may consider "ugly".

In case you want to craft your own welcome HTML page and directly serve your file through it then you should add the --template flag and specify your landing HTML file, like this:
rclone serve http --user username --pass password --cert /path/to/certificate.pem --key /path/to/key.pem --addr :8080 . --template index.html &

In index.html you can put anything like:
<h1>This file will only be available this week.</h1>
<a href="filename.ext">Download!</a>
and so on...
Then https://IP:8080/ will directly output the selected HTML page.

• As you can see all examples above end with '&' in order to send rclone to the background and free the shell. That's how I use it in my snippets, however while learning/debugging you'd better skip it and add the -v option in order to turn output verbose.

Full doc for 'rclone serve http' can be found here:
https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_http/

Hope this is helpful.

JabJab

tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

plumberg

@JabJab said:
tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

Hahahha. I am lazy and installed nginx via root login. Seem to be getting 403 error to access my file. Which is saved in the same location as default index.html

Beats me what is causing it to go crazy

plumberg

@farsighter said:

@plumberg said:
Interesting. Can you please share details?

rclone is a fantastic tool which lets you (among many other things) serve local files. You won't need any cloud provider (aka 'remote') or other preparations in order to use the following examples for your goal. Just 'apt-get install rclone'.

Now I'll give you some examples to play with.

The following command will simply serve files from current directory over HTTP on port 8080 :
rclone serve http --addr :8080 . &
You can replace that dot with any full path of course. Access from http://IP:8080/

If you want to serve only a specific file from current directory over HTTP on port 8080, do like this:
rclone serve http --addr :8080 ./filename.ext &

The following one will serve files from current directory over HTTPS + authentication on port 8080:
rclone serve http --user username --pass password --cert /path/to/certificate.pem --key /path/to/key.pem --addr :8080 . &
Access from https://IP:8080/.
(Just remove --user and --pass flags if you only require SSL without authentication).

The above 3 commands will simply serve your file/s as directory listing which may be enough for you, but some people may consider "ugly".

In case you want to craft your own welcome HTML page and directly serve your file through it then you should add the --template flag and specify your landing HTML file, like this:
rclone serve http --user username --pass password --cert /path/to/certificate.pem --key /path/to/key.pem --addr :8080 . --template index.html &

In index.html you can put anything like:
<h1>This file will only be available this week.</h1>
<a href="filename.ext">Download!</a>
and so on...
Then https://IP:8080/ will directly output the selected HTML page.

• As you can see all examples above end with '&' in order to send rclone to the background and free the shell. That's how I use it in my snippets, however while learning/debugging you'd better skip it and add the -v option in order to turn output verbose.

Full doc for 'rclone serve http' can be found here:
https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_serve_http/

Hope this is helpful.

Looks interesting. Thank you. Will definitely try

cpsd

@plumberg said:

@JabJab said:
tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

Hahahha. I am lazy and installed nginx via root login. Seem to be getting 403 error to access my file. Which is saved in the same location as default index.html

Beats me what is causing it to go crazy

you need to check for file permissons. Or just chmod +x your file will fix it.

plumberg

@cpsd said:

@plumberg said:

@JabJab said:
tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

Hahahha. I am lazy and installed nginx via root login. Seem to be getting 403 error to access my file. Which is saved in the same location as default index.html

Beats me what is causing it to go crazy

you need to check for file permissons. Or just chmod +x your file will fix it.

I made sure all files share same permissions as index.html. but will double check.

plumberg

@cpsd said:

@plumberg said:

@JabJab said:
tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

Hahahha. I am lazy and installed nginx via root login. Seem to be getting 403 error to access my file. Which is saved in the same location as default index.html

Beats me what is causing it to go crazy

you need to check for file permissons. Or just chmod +x your file will fix it.

Yeh. Does not work

rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3971 Oct 7 2019 404.html
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4020 Oct 7 2019 50x.html
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4057 Oct 7 2019 index.html
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 368 Oct 7 2019 nginx-logo.png
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4148 Oct 7 2019 poweredby.png
rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 1048576000 Sep 4 23:25 x.abc

Last file is mine... still no luck. 403.

rm_

If you didn't need SSL, there are:
https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=mini-httpd
https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=webfs

If you do, Caddy might be the easiest option, at least from their claims.

plumberg

@plumberg said:

@cpsd said:

@plumberg said:

@JabJab said:
tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

Hahahha. I am lazy and installed nginx via root login. Seem to be getting 403 error to access my file. Which is saved in the same location as default index.html

Beats me what is causing it to go crazy

you need to check for file permissons. Or just chmod +x your file will fix it.

Yeh. Does not work

rw-r--r--. 1 root root 3971 Oct 7 2019 404.html
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4020 Oct 7 2019 50x.html
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4057 Oct 7 2019 index.html
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 368 Oct 7 2019 nginx-logo.png
rw-r--r--. 1 root root 4148 Oct 7 2019 poweredby.png
rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 1048576000 Sep 4 23:25 x.abc

Last file is mine... still no luck. 403.

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/questions/403-forbidden-nginx-13-permission-denied

SELinux.......

seems to work great now!

TimboJones

To answer the question in OP, search Google, surely you'll get a response faster than LET?

plumberg

@TimboJones said:
To answer the question in OP, search Google, surely you'll get a response faster than LET?

this time LET out-shined

TimboJones

@plumberg said:

@TimboJones said:
To answer the question in OP, search Google, surely you'll get a response faster than LET?

this time LET out-shined

I can't tell from the timestamps, but it seemed like more than 12 hours instead of 15 minutes.

Tejy

If it's a static file, go with S3 static website (lifetime free 75GB with Scaleway) + Cloudflare.

jsg

@cpsd said:

@plumberg said:

@JabJab said:
tbh just apt-get install nginx because I have a feeling your next post will be "Help, my caddy/rclone/python webserver did not start automagically after reboot, how can I configure it".

Hahahha. I am lazy and installed nginx via root login. Seem to be getting 403 error to access my file. Which is saved in the same location as default index.html

Beats me what is causing it to go crazy

you need to check for file permissons. Or just chmod +x your file will fix it.

'+x'?? I guess you meant 'go+r'?