POST method throws error 405 on npm http-server

Question

I am trying to make an Ajax request to run a php file on a local http server. I am getting an Error 405: method not allowed in my browser console.

I have tried the answers of some similar questions to no avail. I am using npm http-server to host this. I have tried enabling CORS on the http-server, which does not solve the problem.

I can narrow down my problem to the following code (using the answer given here).

/test.html:

<html>
    <head>
        <title>Button</title>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <!-- jQuery -->
        <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.0/jquery.min.js"></script>  
    </head>
    <body>
        <button type="button">Click Me</button>
        <p></p>
        <script type="text/javascript">
            $(document).ready(function(){
                $("button").click(function(){
                    $.ajax({
                        method: 'POST',
                        url: 'echo.php',
                        success: function(data) {
                            alert(data);
                            $("p").text(data);

                        }
                    });
                });
            });
        </script>
    </body>
</html>

/echo.php:

<?php
    header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *');
    header('Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, OPTIONS');
    header('Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Content-Type, Accept');
    echo "HELLO WORLD";
?>

I start a server using http-server from npm. When I attempt to make POST requests (i.e., click the button), I get the following error in the server log:

[...] "POST /echo.php" Error (404): "Not found"

The echo.php file is definitely there -- I can make GET requests to the same url. I also see the following error in my browser console:

POST http://127.0.0.1:8080/echo.php 405 (Method Not Allowed)
    send @ jquery.min.js:4
    ajax @ jquery.min.js:4
    (anonymous function) @ test.html:15
    dispatch @ jquery.min.js:3
    q.handle @ jquery.min.js:3

When I make a GET request, no errors appear, and the code of echo.php is placed inside the <p>, as I would expect.

Is this a problem with my server configuration or just a code problem?

Update 1:

There isn't too much information I can get out of http-server. Here is the full log including the execution command:

$ http-server --cors -p 8080

Starting up http-server, serving ./
Available on:
  http://127.0.0.1:8080
Hit CTRL-C to stop the server
[Sat Sep 24 2016 16:47:14 GMT-0400 (EDT)] "GET /test.html" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.101 Safari/537.36"
[Sat Sep 24 2016 16:47:19 GMT-0400 (EDT)] "POST /echo.php" "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/53.0.2785.101 Safari/537.36"
[Sat Sep 24 2016 16:47:19 GMT-0400 (EDT)] "POST /echo.php" Error (404): "Not found"

Update 2

http-server does not support POST requests after all. See below for answer...

Should I print out some log of http-server? I have a feeling that it is a server config problem. — Miles, Sep 24 '16 at 20:40
@HansGerber - I can't get much out of the http-server in terms of logs. [This page](https://www.npmjs.com/package/http-server) outlines the default settings. I hope that provides more info. — Miles, Sep 24 '16 at 20:53

Miles · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-24T21:16:19.017

15

I figured it out! Kind of stupid, but hopefully this is helpful for other people who experience this issue. I was looking through the http-server repo and encountered the following GitHub issue.

npm http-server does not support POST requests. It is a read-only server, so has no code to facilitate this type of request.

I am now looking into JSON-server, which does support POST requests.

edited Sep 24 '16 at 21:16

answered Sep 24 '16 at 21:04

Miles

780
7
19

1

I was stuck on the same problem. So thanks! I tried the json-server now but I get a 404 when I want to `POST`. Did you have the same problem? – liquid.pizza Oct 21 '16 at 09:29
Thank you so much! I lost all of yesterday thinking it was on my side! However, I also get a 404 Not Found when trying JSON-server. Looks like I might have to use the full blown XAMPP, even though it's completely overkill for my needs. – Heather Sawatsky Jul 26 '17 at 20:04

POST method throws error 405 on npm http-server

Update 1:

Update 2

1 Answers1