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Create Web Server In Python

A web server stores and serves website content, such as text, photos, videos, and application data, to clients who request it. A web browser application is the most prevalent sort of client, and it requests data from your website when a user clicks on a link or downloads a document on a page displayed in the browser. There are two approaches to setting up a web server in Python. Python includes a webserver by default. You can also build a custom web server with unique features. This tutorial will teach you how to do so.

Python Default Web Server

Run the following command to start a webserver:

python3 -m http.server

The above code will launch a very simple Web server that will serve files relative to the current directory on port 8000. You can then navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8080/ in your browser.

The webserver is also reachable over the network using your 192.168.-.- IP address. This is the machine’s default server, from which you can download files.

Change Web Server port

Run the following command to change the port of the webserver:

python3 -m http.server 8080

Customize Python Web Server

The above code will set up a very basic server that will serve files from the current directory. It is also possible to build a Web server in python that can respond to HTTP queries and return HTML websites.

from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer

hostName = "localhost"
serverPort = 8080

class MyWebServer(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
  def do_GET(self):
    self.send_response(200)
    self.send_header("Content-type", "text/html")
    self.end_headers()
    self.wfile.write(bytes("<html><head><title>Web Server</title></head>", "utf-8"))
    self.wfile.write(bytes("<p>Request: %s</p>" % self.path, "utf-8"))
    self.wfile.write(bytes("<body>", "utf-8"))
    self.wfile.write(bytes("<p>This is an example web server.</p>", "utf-8"))
    self.wfile.write(bytes("</body></html>", "utf-8"))

if __name__ == "__main__": 
 webServer = HTTPServer((hostName, serverPort), MyWebServer)
 print("Server started http://%s:%s" % (hostName, serverPort))

 try:
 webServer.serve_forever()
 except KeyboardInterrupt:
 pass

 webServer.server_close()
 print("Server stopped.")

The following code set up A web server capable of handling HTTP GET requests and returning an HTML file as a response. When you open a URL like http://127.0.0.1/example, the method do_GET() is invoked. In this way, we manually send the webpage.

Create Python Flask Web Server

Flask is a web framework and a Python module that allows you to easily create web applications. It has a tiny and easy-to-extend core: it’s a microframework without an ORM (Object Relational Manager) or similar functionality.

from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/')
def hello_world():
    return 'Hello World!'

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run()

Run the file and the webserver will be created:

$ python server.py
 * Serving Flask app "hello"
 * Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/ (Press CTRL+C to quit)

It then launches a web server that is solely accessible from your computer. In a web browser, navigate to localhost on port 5000 and you’ll see “Hello World.”

Learn Intermediate Python, GUI Programming in C.

Read more about the python flask web framework.