/simple-webserver

Primary LanguageShell

Simple webserver container

This directory contains a Dockerfile to build a container that runs a very small webserver. The server is very simple: it does NOT support any server-side scripting like PHP, and is essentially only good enough so server static files.

You might find this webserver as a place to host files for the project--however, using it is not required.

Starting/working with the container

This repository contains a Dockerfile that automatically builds the container and a script to run it.

Initial setup: build the container image

./run-container setup

Starting the container

./run-container start

This will start a webserver and print an URL you can use to connect to it--for details, see the next section.

In your terminal, you should see a log of each request made to the webserver. To shutdown the webserver, press Ctrl + C.

Hosting files and connecting to the webserver

The webserver hosts all files in the webroot directory of this repository. For example, if you add the file webroot/index.html, you can start the container and then view it at http://SERVER-ADDRESS/index.html

What should SERVER-ADDRESS be? The answer is a bit complicated due to how networking works inside containers: containers run inside their own network that is separated from the host system, and we need to do some special logic to connect to them from the host. We've set all this up for you, but the key point is that the URL you use is different depending on how you're connecting to the container:

  • To connect to the webserver from your host machine (ie, OUTSIDE the container): Use the address http://localhost:9090

    • DO NOT use this address in exploits: it only works on your host system!

  • To connect to the webserver from another container use the IP address listed for "this container's internal IP", which is printed when the server starts up (for example, http://172.17.0.2/index.html )

    • Note: this address may change each time you start the container, so check for it each time!

More useful container utilities

You may find the following options useful for working with the container.

Resetting the container

To restart the container from fresh copy of the image, run:

./run-container --clean start

This will start a new container from the original image, erasing any changes made to the container filesystem.

Note: this doesn't affect the webroot directory, which is shared with your local machine--any changes you make here are still saved.

Erasing the container image

If you want to free up space and delete the container image entirely, run:

./run-container clean-image

This deletes any containers and the image itself, (hopefully) removing it completely from your Docker storage.