Many plugins take advantage of the online web server to generate images.

For some reasons (security, performance…​) you may need to use your own local server instead. This is possible link::server[thanks to the PlantUML Server which is available here].

However, installing and configuring a full webserver may be too complex for some users so we have decided to integrate a tiny webserver inside plantuml.jar.

This means that you only need a Java Runtime Environment and plantuml.jar to run this very simple web server.

Running the server is pretty simple. You just have to launch:

Attention: By default, the server listens on all interfaces on port 8080. To change the default behavior, you can specify a colon separated port (still listening on all interfaces) or, both, a port and a bind address:

The server is really basic. It only understands GET requests with following patterns:

Those GET requests are used by various PlantUML plugins. Once you have launched your server, you can simply test it. With any web browser, you just have to point to: http://127.0.0.1:8080.

This way, you can very easily use any plugins which need some PlantUML HTTP server without the official online server.