bash - Minimal web server using netcat

Question

I'm trying to set up a minimal web server using netcat (nc). When the browser calls up localhost:1500, for instance, it should show the result of a function (date in the example below, but eventually it'll be a python or c program that yields some data). My little netcat web server needs to be a while true loop in bash, possibly as simple as this:

while true ; do  echo -e "HTTP/1.1 200 OK

 $(date)" | nc -l -p 1500  ; done

When I try this the browser shows the currently available data during the moment when nc starts. I want the browser displays the data during the moment the browser requests it, though. How can I achieve this?

Answer 1

Try this:

while true ; do nc -l -p 1500 -c 'echo -e "HTTP/1.1 200 OK

 $(date)"'; done

The -cmakes netcat execute the given command in a shell, so you can use echo. If you don't need echo, use -e. For further information on this, try man nc. Note, that when using echo there is no way for your program (the date-replacement) to get the browser request. So you probably finally want to do something like this:

while true ; do nc -l -p 1500 -e /path/to/yourprogram ; done

Where yourprogram must do the protocol stuff like handling GET, sending HTTP 200 etc.