49 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
# The serve command
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The serve command is used to preview a book by serving it over HTTP at
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`localhost:3000` by default. Additionally it watches the book's directory for
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changes, rebuilding the book and refreshing clients for each change. A websocket
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connection is used to trigger the client-side refresh.
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***Note:*** *The `serve` command is for testing a book's HTML output, and is not
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intended to be a complete HTTP server for a website.*
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#### Specify a directory
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The `serve` command can take a directory as an argument to use as the book's
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root instead of the current working directory.
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```bash
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mdbook serve path/to/book
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```
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#### Server options
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`serve` has four options: the HTTP port, the WebSocket port, the HTTP hostname
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to listen on, and the hostname for the browser to connect to for WebSockets.
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For example: suppose you have an nginx server for SSL termination which has a
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public address of 192.168.1.100 on port 80 and proxied that to 127.0.0.1 on port
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8000\. To run use the nginx proxy do:
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```bash
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mdbook serve path/to/book -p 8000 -n 127.0.0.1 --websocket-hostname 192.168.1.100
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```
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If you were to want live reloading for this you would need to proxy the
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websocket calls through nginx as well from `192.168.1.100:<WS_PORT>` to
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`127.0.0.1:<WS_PORT>`. The `-w` flag allows for the websocket port to be
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configured.
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#### --open
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When you use the `--open` (`-o`) flag, mdbook will open the book in your your
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default web browser after starting the server.
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#### --dest-dir
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The `--dest-dir` (`-d`) option allows you to change the output directory for the
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book. Relative paths are interpreted relative to the book's root directory. If
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not specified it will default to the value of the `build.build-dir` key in
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`book.toml`, or to `./book`.
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