An HTTP server for single-page apps that use the HTML5 history API
history-server
is an HTTP server for websites that are composed of many single-page apps (i.e. apps that use the HTML5 history
API including history.pushState
, history.replaceState
, and the popstate
event). The server is capable of serving many apps from various directories and even different hosts, all from the same domain.
npm install -g history-server
The easiest way to use history-server
is to point the binary at an app
directory that contains your index.html
file.
$ history-server app
Alternatively, you may serve many apps from the same domain using a directory that contains many apps or a config file (see Configuration below).
$ history-server -a apps
$ history-server -c config.js
You may use the following flags:
-h, --help Show this help message
-a, --apps The path to a directory that contains many apps
-c, --config The path to a module that exports the server config
-p, --port The port to bind to, defaults to 8080
history-server
accepts an array of "apps" as configuration. Each app is an object of { path, root, options, proxy }
where:
path
is the URL pattern, i.e. /the/url (required)root
is the root directory of the app on disk (optional, only for same host)options
are express.static
options (optional, only used with root
)proxy
is the target URL on another host (e.g. http://www.example.com/path
) or an options object to http-proxy
(optional, for different hosts)Save your configuration in a module called config.js
, then start a server with history-server -c config.js
.
To serve a single app, just point history-server at a root directory that contains an index.html file to serve at the / URL, using e.g. history-server app
.
To serve many apps on the same host, you'll need a way to tell history-server which apps should be served at which URLs. An easy way to do this is to just use the file system to layout your apps like you want your URLs to look.
For example, consider the following directory tree:
apps/
├── one
│ ├── index.html
│ └── index.js
└── two
├── index.html
├── index.js
└── three
├── index.html
└── index.js
You can use history-server -a apps
serve all 3 of these apps at the following URLs, in matching order:
/two/three => apps/two/three
/one => apps/one
/two => apps/two
Care is taken to match the apps with the longest URLs first, because they are the most specific.
const path = require("path");
const { createServer } = require("history-server");
const server = createServer([
// Any request that begins with "/one" will use apps/one/index.html
{
path: "/one",
root: path.resolve(__dirname, "apps/one")
},
// Any request that begins with "/two/three" will serve apps/two/index.html
{
path: "/two/three",
root: path.resolve(__dirname, "apps/two")
},
// Any request that begins with "/two" will serve apps/two/index.html
{
path: "/two",
root: path.resolve(__dirname, "apps/two")
},
// Proxies all requests to "/proxy" through to another host
{
path: "/proxy",
proxy: "http://www.example.com/path"
}
]);
When mounting multiple HTML5 apps on the same domain, you should be sure to:
<script src="index.js"></script>
instead of <script src="/index.js"></script>
. Otherwise your request will go to the root URL instead of your app<base href>
to specify the base URL to use for all those relative URLs. This should be the path
of your app with a trailing slash, e.g. /one/
for an app with a path
of /one
That's it! Enjoy :)