miniserve

miniserve is a small, self-contained binary that lets you serve a directory or a single file over HTTP from your terminal in seconds. No configuration files, no dependencies, no setup — just point it at a path and go.

Features

• Zero config — one command to serve any directory or file
• File upload support — optionally allow clients to upload files via the browser UI
• Authentication — protect the server with HTTP basic auth
• QR code — prints a QR code in the terminal so mobile devices can connect instantly
• Directory listing — clean, navigable HTML UI out of the box
• TLS support — serve over HTTPS with a provided certificate
• Archive download — let clients download an entire directory as a .tar or .zip
• Single binary — no runtime dependencies, easy to copy anywhere

Installation

cargo install miniserve

Or via package manager:

# Debian / Ubuntu (Debian 12+)
apt install miniserve

# Fedora
dnf install miniserve

# Arch Linux
pacman -S miniserve

# macOS
brew install miniserve

# Nix
nix-env -iA nixpkgs.miniserve

Usage

# Serve the current directory on port 8080
miniserve .

# Serve a specific directory
miniserve /path/to/files

# Serve a single file
miniserve archive.tar.gz

# Allow file uploads
miniserve --upload-files .

# Require a username and password
miniserve --auth user:password .

# Show a QR code for easy mobile access
miniserve --qrcode .

# Serve on a specific port and bind address
miniserve --port 9000 --interfaces 0.0.0.0 .

# Enable HTTPS
miniserve --tls-cert cert.pem --tls-key key.pem .

Why miniserve over Python's http.server?

The classic python3 -m http.server is convenient but limited — no upload support, no auth, no TLS, and noticeably slower. miniserve covers all of those cases with a single Rust binary that starts up instantly and handles concurrent connections efficiently.