FastAPI served front page not shown on Connect server

Posit Professional & Hosted Products Posit Connect
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1

Hi,

When I want to share my python script with colleagues to use, I made it a FastAPI app. It serves a front page as a simple interface in addition to API calls.

It runs fine locally. When I open url http://127.0.0.1:8000 or http://127.0.0.1:8000/index.html the front page shows. The docs page (http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs) also works

However once published to our Connect server, the front page does not show. docs page works though.

When I put the direct link URL in, the page is just blank; the same blank page happens to direct.url.link/index.html. (direct.url.link/docs shows the the API document as it should)

When I intentionally spell index.html wrong, like direct.url.link/index.htm, the page returns 'not found' response:

{
"detail": "Not Found"
}

which means the API works properly; but FastAPI served page does not.

Is this an issue with Connect Server config or the app needs to be modification to work properly?

Thanks for any insight!

2

Additional observation:

Only the index.html doesn't show. Other files in the same location seem to work fine.

For example, a global.css file is in the same path as index.html and direct.url.link/global.css properly display the content of the css.

I wonder if Connect server disables html files for FastAPI apps by default?

3

Did you configure the fastapi to serve static files?

4

Yes. the app runs fine locally.

I narrowed it down to the paths to javascript in the index.html. Going to try out something and see if it works.

5

It was the path in the index.html. On local machine, the absolute path in the form of /scripts/abc.js and /img/logo.png are OK. But on the Connect server they have to be relative paths like scripts/abc.js and img/logo.png. This makes sense when thinking about how Connect server serves individual apps.

Also it has to be through the direct link. I haven't found a way to make it work in the "content" page :person_shrugging: