How to create a simple local web page using C# windows forms

2020 Update:

Original answer at the bottom.

Kestrel and Katana are now a thing and I would strongly recommend you look into those things as well as OWIN

Original Answer:

You will want to look into creating an HttpListener, you can add prefixes to the listener such as Listener.Prefixes.Add("http://+:3070/") which will bind it to the port your wanting.

A simple console app: Counting the requests made

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Text;

namespace TestServer
{
    class ServerMain
    {
        // To enable this so that it can be run in a non-administrator account:
        // Open an Administrator command prompt.
        // netsh http add urlacl http://+:8008/ user=Everyone listen=true
        
        const string Prefix = "http://+:3070/";
        static HttpListener Listener = null;
        static int RequestNumber = 0;
        static readonly DateTime StartupDate = DateTime.UtcNow;

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (!HttpListener.IsSupported)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("HttpListener is not supported on this platform.");
                return;
            }
            using (Listener = new HttpListener())
            {
                Listener.Prefixes.Add(Prefix);
                Listener.Start();
                // Begin waiting for requests.
                Listener.BeginGetContext(GetContextCallback, null);
                Console.WriteLine("Listening. Press Enter to stop.");
                Console.ReadLine();
                Listener.Stop();
            }
        }

        static void GetContextCallback(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            int req = ++RequestNumber;

            // Get the context
            var context = Listener.EndGetContext(ar);

            // listen for the next request
            Listener.BeginGetContext(GetContextCallback, null);

            // get the request
            var NowTime = DateTime.UtcNow;

            Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", NowTime.ToString("R"), context.Request.RawUrl);

            var responseString = string.Format("<html><body>Your request, \"{0}\", was received at {1}.<br/>It is request #{2:N0} since {3}.",
                context.Request.RawUrl, NowTime.ToString("R"), req, StartupDate.ToString("R"));

            byte[] buffer = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(responseString);
            // and send it
            var response = context.Response;
            response.ContentType = "text/html";
            response.ContentLength64 = buffer.Length;
            response.StatusCode = 200;
            response.OutputStream.Write(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            response.OutputStream.Close();
        }
    }
}

And for extra credit, try adding it to the services on your computer!


Microsoft Relased an Open Source Project called OWIN it is simlar to Node but bottom line it allows you to host web applications in a console application:

You can find more information here:

  • https://github.com/duovia/duovia-http
  • http://owin.org/
  • http://katanaproject.codeplex.com/

But if you insist in creating your personal listener you can find some help here:

  • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httplistener(VS.80).aspx

  • http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/vstudio/en-US/b7f476d1-3147-4b18-ba5e-0b3ce8f8a918/want-to-make-a-webserver-with-httplistener

Tags:

C#

Localhost

Endpoint

Hosting

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