OS X has a built-in web server called Apache. It’s been there for a long, long time. Once upon a time, you could enable web sharing using System Preferences. This is no longer a feature in the Sharing System Preference pane, but you can actually enable it quicker than you could before. To do so, we’ll use apachectl:
/usr/sbin/apachectl start
To then stop the web server:
/usr/sbin/apachectl stop
To see the apache status:
/usr/sbin/apachectl status
Or:
/usr/sbin/apachectl fullstatus
The default site is stored in /Library/WebServer/Documents. You can then edit this there, or replace the index.html.en file with a file/hierarchy that you wish to have.
Enjoy.
