# H2O

the optimized HTTP/1.x, HTTP/2 server

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## Configure > Quick Start

In order to run the H2O standalone HTTP server, you need to write a configuration file. The minimal configuration file looks like as follows.

    listen:
      port: 8080
    user: nobody
    hosts:
      "myhost.example.com":
        paths:
          /:
            file.dir: /path/to/the/public-files
    access-log: /path/to/the/access-log
    error-log: /path/to/the/error-log
    pid-file: /path/to/the/pid-file

The configuration instructs the server to:

1. listen to port 8080
2. under the privileges of `nobody`
3. serve files under `/path/to/the/public-files`
4. emit access logs to file: `/path/to/the/access-log`
5. emit error logs to `/path/to/the/error-log`
6. store the process id of the server in `/path/to/the/pid-file`

Enter the command below to start the server.

    % sudo h2o -m daemon -c /path/to/the/configuration-file

The command instructs the server to read the configuration file, and start in `daemon` mode, which dispatches a pair of master and worker processes that serves the HTTP requests.

To stop the server, send `SIGTERM` to the server.

    % sudo kill -TERM `cat /path/to/the/pid-file`

### Next Step

Now that you know how to start and stop the server, the next step is to learn the configuration directives and their structure, or see the configuration examples.