Can't Serve Static Files using Node.js over port 3000

Question

This may be an insanely stupid question, even for a node.js newbie. I set up a droplet running 64-bit Ubuntu and installed all of the requisite Node.js packages. I am building a chatroom application using the Node.js in Action book. For this project, I created an HTTP server for serving static content. For some reason, I am able to hit the server over port 3000 (and get a 404 error message), but I can’t seem to serve the static content that I created in the public directory (i.e. index.html file). Below is the server and the index.html file. Can anyone give me a clue why the content is not being served? Assume all the files are in their correct directory locations on the server.

Server:

var http = require(‘http’); var fs = require(‘fs’); var path = require(‘path’); var mime = require(‘mime’); var cache = {};

server.listen(3000, function() { console.log(“Server listening on port 3000.”); });

Index.html file

<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang=“en”> <head> <title>Chat</title> <link rel=“stylesheet” href=“/stylesheets/style.css”><link> </head> <body> <div id=“content”> <div id=“room”></div> <div id=“room-list”></div> <div id=“messages”></div>

<<form id=“send-form”> <input id=“send-message” /> <input id=“send-button” type=“submit” value=“Send” />

<div id='help'>
    Chat commands:
    <ul>
        <li>Change nickname: <code>/nick [username]</code></li>
        <li>Join/create room: <code>/join [room name] </code></li>
    </ul>
</div>

</form> </div>

<

Andrew SB · Answer

So taking a quick look at this, if I go to htttp://my.ip.address:3000/index.html I can see the web page. If I just go to the root, I get the 404. So that led me to look at this bit:


if (request.url == ‘/’) {
 filepath = ‘public/index.html’;
} else {
 filePath = ‘public’ + request.url;
}

With this pulled out on it’s own, you’ll probably smack yourself in the forehead. It’s just a simple miss-capitalization! filepath should be filePath

tonysziklai · Answer

Wow. How lame! Thanks for the help Andrew!!!

Andrew SB · Answer

No problem! I think we’ve all spent embarrassingly long amounts of time debugging things in the past only to find out that that we misspelled something.

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Can't Serve Static Files using Node.js over port 3000

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Can't Serve Static Files using Node.js over port 3000