Python Web Server: Create in 5 minutes on VPS

You cant create web server on VPS in 5 minutes. This article will show you how to do so.

Create a new VPS with Debian 10 Operation system. Connect to it via ssh and the run the folowing commands.

apt update
apt upgrade

Open a new file in your favorite editor. The simplest is nano.

nano web-server.py

Copy-paste (or type) the following code. Do not forget to replace <your_public_ip> with IP of your VPS.

#!/usr/bin/python3

from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
import time

hostName = "<your_public_ip>"
serverPort = 80

class MyServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
    def do_GET(self):
        self.send_response(200)
        self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
        self.end_headers()
        self.wfile.write(bytes("OK", "utf-8"))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    webServer = HTTPServer((hostName, serverPort), MyServer)
    print("Server started http://%s:%s" % (hostName, serverPort))

    try:
        webServer.serve_forever()
    except KeyboardInterrupt:
        pass

    webServer.server_close()
    print("Server stopped.")
                        

Ctrl+o – to save the file. Ctrl+x – to exit nano. Change mode to executable:

chmod a+x web-server.py

Run the server. (If you bind to first 1024 ports then your need run service as a sudo).

./web-server.py

Now you can open browser, enter <your_public_ip> and enjoy the result 😎.

Customize Web Server port

If you need another port than you edit serverPort variable. If port is 38800 than you do not need sudo to run the server.

#!/usr/bin/python3

from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
import time

hostName = "<your_public_ip>"
serverPort = 38800

Customize page path

class MyServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
    def do_GET(self):
        self.send_response(200)
        self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
        self.end_headers()

        if self.path == "/":
            self.wfile.write(bytes("Main page", "utf-8"))
            return

        if self.path == "/page1":
            self.wfile.write(bytes("page1", "utf-8"))
            return

        if self.path == "/page2":
            self.wfile.write(bytes("page2", "utf-8"))
            return

Response with JSON

#!/usr/bin/python3

from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
import time
import json

hostName = "<your_public_ip>"
serverPort = 80

class MyServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
    def do_GET(self):
        self.send_response(200)
        self.send_header("Content-type", "application/json")
        self.end_headers()

        response = {
            "id": 12,
            "fieldStr": "text",
            "version": "1.2.3.4"
        }
        self.wfile.write(bytes(json.dumps(response), "utf-8"))

Conclusion

Creating Web server in 5 minutes is very useful feature for testing.