Ever need to download a file from a server – or get someone else to download a file from a server, who may not be comfortable with or should have access to scp or sftp?

Turns out, if you have Python installed – and you probably do – it comes with a handy one-liner file server for just such an occasion:

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python -m http.server 12345    # or whatever port you prefer

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Then to close the server, just Ctrl+C.

Notice too that the webserver starts by default, at least on my machine, on 0.0.0.0. That means that every network interface will point to it, not just localhost.

If you have ever wanted to share a file for one-time usage with another device over your local household’s LAN, with a family member, for instance, this can make an excellent option. Have them try whatever 192.168.x.y:12345 is suggested by the output of your local ifconfig, I mean, ip a, to start, and season to taste.

This is my actual, personal use case for it. Surely no one would be crazy enough to run the default http.server in production… Would they? 😉