Proxy path option

[Keksike]

Add new "proxy path" -R option, which you can use to specify a certain path for which the requests are proxied. Other paths are not proxied.

Example:

If I want to proxy only requests done to path /api/, I can set -R /api/. Then:

GET /a.html -> not proxied
GET /api/data -> proxied

Solves issue: #280

[Keksike]

Hey,

I guess this will still need some work. It works perfectly fine when testing locally, but on my AWS deployment it somehow breaks.

[Keksike]

Actually I guess it works, issue is probably just with my AWS setup :)

[BigBlueHat]

Thanks for coding this idea!

First, some minor house keeping:

• squash the current commits with focused commit messages
• write tests!

Second, we'd need to address some of the confusion around the semantics of the command and the likely request for doing this with multiple paths. URL rewriting has come up before and #377 explores a "config-based" approach. However, keeping http-server "config-less" (or command line switches only) is also very appealing.

Consequently, things could get confusing when folks try to figure out how to use this feature. For instance:

• http-server --proxy http://api.example/ - works now; everything that isn't on disk goes here
• http-server --proxy http://api.example/ -R /api/ - this PR; only things not on disk and that contain this prefix
• http-server -R /api/ - would fail; should it throw an error? just get ignored?
• http-server --proxy http://api.example/ -R /api/ -R /a/ - not sure what would/should happen here...
• http-server --proxy http://api.example/ -R /api/ --proxy http://db.example/-R /db/ - ...someone will ask for this...

Currently, the --proxy option will catch everything not on disk...and I can understand not wanting that to happen. However, because of the scenarios mentioned above, providing this -R option (which might need renaming...) would sadly add confusion, not clarity. But, I think this has merit! It just needs some more discussion/code to make it sing. 😃

There are bound to be other servers out there who handle a "path + URL" mapping from the command line. Perhaps picking up some of their tips and trips may help here.

[Keksike]

Excellent points! You are absolutely right that there should be a way to include multiple paths, and I don't think there is a good way to do it with the command line switches.

My gut feeling is that an optional config would be the way to go if you decide to add this feature in.

Anyways, thanks for responding and I hope my PR raises some discussion!

[Keksike]

https://github.com/txchen/light-server has a similar kind of implementation as the one I did (--proxypath <proxypath> e.g. --proxypath '/api/'). I found it perfect for my needs.

It also has a optional config file, which might be a good way to implement the configuration (e.g. for various proxypaths) which was mentioned above.

[github-actions]

This pull request has been inactive for 360 days

[one-github]

This was almost working, except res.emit('next'); was missing:

diff --git a/node_modules/http-server/bin/http-server b/node_modules/http-server/bin/http-server
index fefa681..0454642 100755
--- a/node_modules/http-server/bin/http-server
+++ b/node_modules/http-server/bin/http-server
@@ -127,6 +127,7 @@ function listen(port) {
     ext: argv.e || argv.ext,
     logFn: logger.request,
     proxy: proxy,
+    proxyPath: argv.R,
     showDotfiles: argv.dotfiles,
     mimetypes: argv.mimetypes,
     username: argv.username || process.env.NODE_HTTP_SERVER_USERNAME,
diff --git a/node_modules/http-server/lib/http-server.js b/node_modules/http-server/lib/http-server.js
index 996db6f..926a56c 100644
--- a/node_modules/http-server/lib/http-server.js
+++ b/node_modules/http-server/lib/http-server.js
@@ -143,6 +143,13 @@ function HttpServer(options) {
   if (typeof options.proxy === 'string') {
     var proxy = httpProxy.createProxyServer({});
     before.push(function (req, res) {
+       var shouldNotProxy =
+         options.proxyPath && req.url.substring(0, options.proxyPath.length) !== options.proxyPath;
+
+       if (shouldNotProxy) {
+         res.emit('next');
+         return;
+       }
       proxy.web(req, res, {
         target: options.proxy,
         changeOrigin: true

[i3ene]

I personally find the idea of a more complex configuration file good. There is also a good approach with #906 with the specified example.
Doing everything over cli parameters gets confusing pretty fast.