This an quick guide to create an http web server using nodeJS.

Download and Install NodeJS

If you haven’t installed Node yet, download the latest stable release of NodeJS from https://nodejs.org and install using all the default options.


Create a package.json file in your website root folder. And add the following,

{
    "name": "<project-name>",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "url": "<project-documentation-url>",
    "git": "<project-github-repo-url>",
    "private": true,
    "designer": "<author-name>",
    "designerURL": "<author-website-url>",
    "license": "Apache License, Version 2.0",
    "licenseURL": "<project-licesnse-url>",
    "scripts":{
        "start": "node index.js"   
    },
    "dependencies": {
        "express":"^4.15.3",
        "copy": "0.3.0"
    }
}


JavaScript (jQuery)

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');

var cwd = '';
var port = 9001;

app.use('/', function (request, response) {
    
    console.log('Received request for URL: ' + request.url);

    var filePath = request.url.split("?").shift()

    if (filePath == '/') {
        filePath = cwd + '/index.html';
    }
    else {
        filePath = cwd + filePath;
    }

    fs.readFile(filePath, null, function(error, data){
        
        if(error){
            response.writeHead(404);
            response.write('File not found.');
        }
        else{
            response.writeHead(200);
            response.write(data);
        }
        
        response.end();
    });
    
});

console.log('Server address: http://127.0.0.1:' + port + '/');
console.log('Server running... press ctrl-c to stop.');

app.listen(port);


Run

Navigate your project root folder on console/terminal and run,

npm install

And then

npm start