Write File Server

A tiny Node.js web server application used to write data contents to files.

Installation

Make sure that you have Node.js (ver. 8.x or later) installed. Then use npm to install the application.

npm install -g write-file-server

Usage

Starting the application

The following environment variables can be used the configure the application:

WRITEFILESRV_HOST - The local network address at which the web server will be listening for HTTP connections. Default: localhost
WRITEFILESRV_PORT - The TCP port to which the web server will be listening for HTTP connections. Default: 8889
WRITEFILESRV_OUTDIR - The directory to which the files will be written. Relative paths are relative to the application's install directory. Default: ./files

To run the application, just issue the command:

writefilesrv

Alternatively, on a unix-like OS, one may use nohup to run the application and avoid it to block the terminal.

nohup writefilesrv &

Sending contents

Once the server is running, use any HTTP client application to send POST requests to the /files/:filename URL, where :filename should be replaced with the actual name of the file to be written.

Example:

curl -X POST --data-binary "This is my file's contents." -H "Content-Type: text/plain" http://localhost:8889/file/MyTestFile

Note: if the file already exists, it will be overwritten.

As an option, to send binary contents to be written to files, one may choose to base64 encode the contents before posting it. In that case, a Content-Type HTTP header with the value application/base64 should be sent.

curl -X POST --data-binary "VGhpcyBpcyBteSBmaWxlJ3MgY29udGVudHMu" -H "Content-Type: application/base64" http://localhost:8889/file/MyTestFile

Note: if any other Content-Type value is used, or if no Content-Type header is present, the posted data will be written to the file as is.

License

This Node.js application is released under the MIT License. Feel free to fork, and modify!