Setting Up SSL For The NPM Module http-server

I normally use MAMP or Vagrant but recently I have been working exclusively with node and wanted to easily create a http server using ssl mainly for quick prototypes.

First setup your project create a directory cd into that directory and run.

npm init -y

npm i http-server

Now setup ssl with the following command.

openssl req -newkey rsa:2048 -new -nodes -x509 -days 3650 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem

Fill in all the details VERY IMPORTANT set your common name to 127.0.0.1 here are my settings.

Country Name (2 letter code) []:GB
State or Province Name (full name) []:
Locality Name (eg, city) []:
Organization Name (eg, company) []:
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (eg, fully qualified host name) []:127.0.0.1
Email Address []:mail@example.co.uk

Now run your project with the following command.

http-server -S -C cert.pem -K key.pem

Make sure you use the outputted https://127.0.0.1:8080/ url that contains the common name to view your website.

If you hit any problems with chrome you can set it up to allow in-secured ssl.

In the Chrome address bar paste.

chrome://flags/

And update this option.

Consider add the http command to your package.json scripts.

"scripts": {
    "start": "http-server -S -C cert.pem -K key.pem"
  },

Now you can just run.

npm start