mdserve

mdserve

mdserve is a minimalistic HTTP server used to render markdown files.

$ go install scm.lagraff.me/mdserve
$ mkdir /tmp/files
$ echo "# Hello World\nThis is my file" > /tmp/files/index.md
$ mdserve -dir /tmp/files
2020/11/27 17:20:16 Starting server (:8080)...
2020/11/27 17:20:45 method=GET host=localhost:8080 path=/index status=200 dur=109.484µs
2020/11/27 17:21:24 method=GET host=localhost:8080 path=/favicon.ico status=404 dur=5.281µs

It works with nested directories, so you can organize your files however you'd like.

You can view all the options using mdserve -h.

Usage

Markdown Files

mdserve will serve markdown files from your current working directory if you do not specify a directory via -dir PATH.

All markdown files must include the file extension .md on your filesystem, although the server can handle requests which omit the extension (this can be disabled).

$ echo "# My markdown file" > my_first_file.md
$ echo "# You cannot see this" > my_other_file
$ mdserve &
$ curl localhost:8080/my_first_file     # return HTTP 200 w/ file
$ curl localhost:8080/my_first_file.md  # return HTTP 200 w/ file
$ curl localhost:8080/my_other_file     # return HTTP 404

Media Files

Your markdown files can reference media files, like images, audio, and video. By default, this behavior is disabled.

To serve media files, there are two settings:

• -media — local path to directory containing media files; or empty to disable.
• -mediaPrefix — the URL prefix required when requesting media files; or empty to disable.

If either option is empty, media files will not be served.

$ mkdir ~/images
$ mkdir ~/markdown
$ curl https://images.pexels.com/photos/3169299/pexels-photo-3169299.jpeg > ~/images/cool_photo.jpeg
$ echo "![alt text for cool photo](/static/acool_photo.jpeg)" > ~/markdown/pictures.md
$ mdserve -dir ~/markdown -media ~/images -mediaPrefix /static

In this example, the media file cool_photo.jpeg is stored in your local folder ~/images, and is retrieved when the browser makes a request to localhost:8080/static/cool_photo.jpeg.

Files outside of your -dir or -media will NOT be served up by the system.

Additional Options

• -ext — flag to require URLs to end with .md extension for markdown files.
• -p \ -port — integer for port for server to listen on.

Help

You can use -h / --help at any time to view available options.

$ mdserve -h
Usage of mdserve:
  -dir string
        path to directory of markdown files (default ".")
  -ext
        require .md extension when routing requests
  -h    show help (shorthand)
  -help
        show help
  -media string
        local path to media files; or empty to disable (default ".")
  -mediaPrefix string
        url prefix to serve media files; or empty to disable (default "/static")
  -p int
        port to receive HTTP requests (shorthand) (default 8080)
  -port int
        port to receive HTTP requests (default 8080)