Is there a simple Python webserver that can be compiled?

You could compile a Python web-server application to a stand-alone binary. Here is an example I just tried, where the standard Python 2 SimpleHTTPServer module is compiled to a stand-alone binary using PyInstaller.

Install PyInstaller:

pip install PyInstaller

Move to a location where you don't mind generating some files:

mkdir /tmp/python-server
cd /tmp/python-server

Generate the binary:

pyinstaller --onefile /usr/lib/python2.7/SimpleHTTPServer.py

Run the generated binary (located in the dist subdirectory):

./dist/SimpleHTTPServer

You should see the server start as if you had run the script using the Python interpreter:

Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 ...

There are many posts which discuss methods for compiling Python programs to stand-alone executables and which include alternatives to PyInstaller, e.g.:

• How to make a Python script standalone executable to run without ANY dependency?

• how to make my python script easy portable? or how to compile into binary with all module dependencies?