Display text file using node js from a remote server

Question

Good day! I'm having a hard time fixing this issue. I'm currently using node js webserver (http).

I'm a beginner in using node js so any help would be appreciated.

What I'm hoping to achieve is to display a string 'Hello World!' in the browser while accessing it through the URL. The problem is I'm running the script from a remote server and unfortunately I can't access it through the URL.

The script is running fine but for the browser it returns an error saying:

host didn’t send any data.
ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE

Here is the script I'm running from the remote server:

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (request, response) {
  response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  response.write('Hello World!');
  response.end();
}).listen(2000);

I think my script doesn't have a problem. So I'm guessing it's from the setup of the server, but I don't have any idea in which part it's causing not to display it. I'm currently using a Linux Server.

Thanks in advance!

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 17 '18 at 20:55

0

From what I can see you are listening on port 2000, are you sure that the url you are requesting the data from also contains the port e.g http://localhost:2000/ ?? Browsers by default tries to connect using port 80 on http and 443 for https, if you are listening on a different port than those, you have to define it in the url, by using a ":" after the domain/ip address

Anyway, have a look at the express module for server side rest APIs, will make request handling so much easier:

const express = require('express');
const app = express().listen(80);

app.get("/",function(request,response){
    response.send('Hello World');
});

answered Aug 17 '18 at 20:55

Clayton Bez

114
3

Yes I tried testing it locally first and it seems its working fine for localhost:2000, but when I migrated the script to the remote server and tried to access it through remoteipadd:2000. I don't get anything in return. – acknolodgia Aug 17 '18 at 21:01
Make sure your remote server port 2000 is open for accepting http requests – DHIRAJ KATEKAR Aug 18 '18 at 05:14
Yes, I'm sure that port 2000 is open. – acknolodgia Aug 20 '18 at 18:33

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 04 '22 at 07:16

Express allows you to handle the creation of web servers better. But node or express, do make sure that the URL you have entered consists of the port number that you have asked the server to listen to.

Another possibility is that the port you have asked to display your response is already being used by another server. You can try using a different port number.

You might have gotten the answer, but this is for the folks out there who are new to node at present and have stumbled upon this stackoverflow question! Good day :)

Display text file using node js from a remote server

2 Answers2