Creating a Local Web Server using Node.js

In this guide, we’re going to create our own web server using Node.js which can respond back to an HTTP request.

Node.js is popular because you can write both server-side and client-side code using a single language Javascript. That’s why Javascript developers are in high demand.

Let’s start! Create a webserver.js file and put all the below codes into that.

Load HTTP Module

The first step is to load the HTTP module to create a web server.

var http = require('http');

Request Listener

Define a request listener who will give a response back to an HTTP request and will tell the browser the type of the contents as well.

var listener = function(req,res){
	
	res.writeHead(200,{ 'Content-Type' : 'text/plain' })
	res.end('Hello World\n');

}

Here we define the mime-type of contents being sent back to the HTTP request and sending a Hello World text.

Here the first parameter is the request which is coming to the web server and the second one is a stream to which a response will be passed.

Create Server

createServer method is used to create a web server. As a callback function, a request listener will be passed to it so we can send a response back and end the request.

one more thing, when an HTTP request sends to a particular port then the listener should watch the port and receives the request. So in this example, we’re listening to the port 1439 at 127.0.0.1 web address, a standard local web server address.

http.createServer(listener).listen(1439,'127.0.0.1');

Start Web Server

now execute the webserver.js using node command and a web server is ready to listen to the request and send the response back.

>$ node webserver.js

Test Web Server

Open your web browser and type http://localhost:1439 or http://127.0.0.1:1439/ in the web address and hit enter. You should see “Hello World” as a plain text response.

That’s it. You have created your own web server in node.js and you can send any type of response back e.g JSON, IMAGE or HTML.