title: Azure create the most basic App Service to serve static files with or without Node through the Portal
body: <p>I am very confused about how App Service works internally.
  I was exploring it and wanted to create a simple App Service through the portal to serve static files but only found a tutorial that uses a shell, not the Azure portal, that also requires services such as storage I don't need.</p>
  
  <p>Here's what I've tried:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Got a subscription and created a resource attached to the free trial subscription</li>
  <li>Create an App Service, basic (free) on Linux, using a new linux service plan and code (not container). I cannot choose any stack or runtime with only a static web server, so I select Node (LTS). I leave the startup command blank (later I'll expand on this). Http version 1.1 or 2 does not seem to make a difference. FTP enabled.</li>
  <li>The resource is properly created, I can see the typical hosting start web
  <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/vwMGl.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/vwMGl.png" alt="welcome page"></a></li>
  <li>I connect to SFTP and I can see I have a path site/wwwroot with a single file <code>hostingstart.html</code> that looks exactly like the welcome page on the screenshot that I see when I access the website URL. I think to myself: "great! I can simply edit this html and I should see the result". Wrong. It does not seem to be the html being served. Not sure why it's there but if I remove it, I still see the same landing page on my site's URL.</li>
  <li>I create an site/wwwroot/index.html but no luck. It's not being served. Maybe Node is not configured by default to do so.</li>
  <li>I create a simple server.js that is capable of serving statically any file: <a href="https://github.com/TheJaredWilcurt/NPM-Free-Server" rel="noreferrer">https://github.com/TheJaredWilcurt/NPM-Free-Server</a> So I use FTP to place a site/wwwroot/server.js and I leave an index.html (in my localhost it works :) ).</li>
  <li>I configure in App Service a initial command like <code>node server.js</code> so that it can run and serve the page and I restart the server. Nothing, no effect.</li>
  <li>I can see on the logs that my server.js is running. I can see a trace that says it's running on localhost:8000</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>At this stage it's been several hours investigating without luck. It can't be that hard!
  I find the following question surprisingly not answered: <a href="https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/issues/32572#issuecomment-551053105" rel="noreferrer">https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/azure-docs/issues/32572#issuecomment-551053105</a></p>
  
  <p>Could anybody shed some light on this? I am open to suggestions. <strong>My goal is: To have (only) an App Service serving a static index.html with a hello world created through the Portal</strong>.</p>
  
  <p>Ta!</p>
  
  <p><strong>UPDATE 1</strong>: Thanks to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/188096/gaurav-mantri">https://stackoverflow.com/users/188096/gaurav-mantri</a> for his suggestion. But I'd like to put emphasis on <strong>App Service</strong> being required as it's for training purposes and I'd like to go from very basic up to more complex dynamic app with the same service and continuous deployment.</p>