Setting up a local web server with Node.js

If you would like to test your Three.js applications, then as described in the How to set up a local web server with Python recipe, you can run it in three different ways. This recipe will focus on the Node.js approach.

Getting ready

To run a local web server with Node.js (https://nodejs.org), we first have to check whether we've got npm (the node package manager, which is installed together with Node.js) installed. You can check this by running the npm command from the command line:

> npm

If the output is similar to the following code snippet, you've got npm installed and you are ready to begin the recipe:

Usage: npm <command>
where ...

How to do it...

1. You can use it to run a simple web server using:

   Usage: npm <command>...
   

2. Now, you are ready to install a web server by running:

   > npm install -g http-server
   

3. Finally, you are ready to start the web server by running http-server from the command line:

   > http-server
   Starting up http-server, serving ./ on port: 8080
   Hit CTRL-C to stop the server
   

A final recipe for running your own web server is presented in the next section. In that recipe you don't need Python or Node.js installed, but we will show you how to download a portable web server that you can run without requiring any installation.