Caddy - Web Server

Below commands are straight taken from Caddy documents and run for testing

Installation

• There isn’t much of installation, its just one execution file
• Store it your user folder .caddy and update environment PATH, so it can be accessed

Basics

Starting caddy

caddy run

It tells to which port its listening to

2024/11/14 16:25:03.756 INFO    admin   admin endpoint started  {"address": "localhost:2019", "enforce_origin": false, "origins": ["//[::1]:2019", "//127.0.0.1:2019", "//localhost:2019"]}
2024/11/14 16:25:03.757 INFO    serving initial configuration

Note: You will have to open another command prompt to execute below commands

Config

To check Caddy’s config. You can run below command, but initially caddy’s config will be blank.

curl localhost:2019/config/

First Config- Save below as caddy.json

{
	"apps": {
		"http": {
			"servers": {
				"example": {
					"listen": [":2015"],
					"routes": [
						{
							"handle": [{
								"handler": "static_response",
								"body": "Hello, world!"
							}]
						}
					]
				}
			}
		}
	}
}

Loading the config file

In windows use ^ and on unix use \

curl localhost:2019/load ^
	-H "Content-Type: application/json" ^
	-d @caddy.json
 
-- Actual pasting
D:\20230422 - BigData\26.Caddy>curl localhost:2019/load ^
More? -H "Content-Type: application/json" ^
More? -d @caddy.json

On checking the config, you get below response

D:\20230422 - BigData\26.Caddy>curl localhost:2019/config/
{"apps":{"http":{"servers":{"example":{"listen":[":2015"],"routes":[{"handle":[{"body":"Hello, world!","handler":"static_response"}]}]}}}}}

Testing

D:\20230422 - BigData\26.Caddy>curl localhost:2015
Hello, world!

Actual Caddyfile format

:2015 
 
respond "Hello, world!"

Above Caddyfile can be converted to JSON format by below command, response in command prompt contains the json

caddy adapt

-- (OR)
-- If file in another path
caddy adapt --config /path/to/Caddyfile

-- Response
D:\20230422 - BigData\26.Caddy>caddy adapt
2024/11/14 17:22:23.877 INFO    using adjacent Caddyfile
{"apps":{"http":{"servers":{"srv0":{"listen":[":2015"],"routes":[{"handle":[{"body":"Hello, world!","handler":"static_response"}]}]}}}}}

Note: Response would look similar to above caddy.json

Reloading Config file live

First start the caddy

caddy run

Open another command prompt, if there is a Caddyfile in the current folder, run below command. It will update the configuration.

caddy reload

-- If Caddyfile is in another path
caddy reload --config "d:\20230422 - BigData\08. HTML\quartz\bdv4q1\til.caddyfile"

caddy reload All outputs should come to `public` directory

Note: Make sure extension is .caddyfile

Stop caddy

caddy stop

While executing caddy run config flag can be passed to mention the path of the Caddyfile

caddy run --config "d:\20230422 - BigData\08. HTML\quartz\bdv4q1\Caddyfile"

Real use case

For development, below is Caddyfile

:8080 {
    root * ./public
    try_files {path} {path}.html {path}/ =404
    file_server
    encode gzip

    handle_errors {
        rewrite * /{err.status_code}.html
        file_server
    }
}

Explanation for above code,

1. This line specifies that the server should listen on port 8080.
2. Sets the root directory for the site to ./public. All file paths will be relative to this directory.
3. try_files
   • Attempts to serve the file at the requested path ({path}).
   • If that fails, it tries to serve {path}.html.
   • If that fails, it tries to serve {path}/.
   • If none of these exist, it returns a 404 error.
4. Enables the file server, which serves files from the root directory.
5. Enables gzip compression for the files being served, which can improve load times for the users.
6. handle_errors
   • This block defines custom error handling.
   • When an error occurs, it rewrites the URL to a specific error page based on the status code (like 404.html for a 404 error).
   • • Serves the rewritten error page using the file server.

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References

• Quartz Hosting in Firebase