Lighttpd

Lighttpd is "a secure, fast, compliant, and very flexible web-server that has been optimized for high-performance environments. It has a very low memory footprint compared to other webservers and takes care of cpu-load. Its advanced feature-set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) make lighttpd the perfect webserver-software for every server that suffers load problems."

Installation

Lighttpd is available in the extra repository so:

# pacman -S lighttpd

Configuration

Basic Setup

The lighttpd configuration file is: /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf. By default it should produce a working test page.

To check your lighttpd.conf for bugs you can use this command - helps finding misconfigurations very fast:

$ lighttpd -t -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

The default configuration file specifies /srv/http/ as the document directory served.

It may be necessary to add a user and group for http if you do not already have one. That user needs to have write permissions to /var/log/lighttpd as well, so we will make it the owner of the folder:

# groupadd http
# adduser http
# chown -R http /var/log/lighttpd

To test the install

# rc.d start lighttpd
# touch /srv/http/index.html
# chmod 755 /srv/http/index.html
# echo 'TestMe!' >> /srv/http/index.html

Then point your browser to localhost, and you should see the test page.

You may want to add lighttpd to the daemons list in /etc/rc.conf to start the server on boot.

Example configuration files are available in /usr/share/doc/lighttpd/.

FastCGI

Install fcgi

# pacman -S fcgi

Now you have lighttpd with fcgi support. If it was that what you wanted you are all set. People that want Ruby on Rails and/or PHP should continue. Template:Box Note

The following needs adding to the config file, /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/fastcgi.conf

server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" )

#server.indexfiles += ( "dispatch.fcgi" ) #this is deprecated
index-file.names += ( "dispatch.fcgi" ) #dispatch.fcgi if rails specified

server.error-handler-404   = "/dispatch.fcgi" #too
fastcgi.server = (
    ".fcgi" => (
      "localhost" => ( 
        "socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/rails-fastcgi.sock",
        "bin-path" => "/path/to/rails/application/public/dispatch.fcgi"
      )
    )
)

Then in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

include "conf.d/fastcgi.conf"

For PHP or Ruby on Rails see the next sections.

PHP

Install php and required modules (see also PHP and LAMP):

# pacman -S php php-cgi

Check that php-cgi is working php-cgi --version

PHP 5.3.1 with Suhosin-Patch (cgi-fcgi) (built: Nov 23 2009 21:12:29)
Copyright (c) 1997-2009 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2009 Zend Technologies

If you get a similar output then php is installed correctly.

Note: Please keep in mind if you receive errors like No input file found after attempting to access your php files then make sure /etc/php/php.ini has the directives enabled:

cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
open_basedir = /srv/http/:/home/:/tmp/:/usr/share/pear/:/another/path:/second/path

And that the files are world readable,

# chmod -R 755

In /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/fastcgi.conf add:

server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" )

#server.indexfiles += ( "index.php" ) #this is deprecated
index-file.names += ( "index.php" )

fastcgi.server = (
    ".php" => (
      "localhost" => ( 
        "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi",
        "socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.sock",
        "max-procs" => 4, # default value
        "bin-environment" => (
          "PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "1", # default value
        ),
        "broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
      ))
)

Then in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

include "conf.d/fastcgi.conf"

Using php-fpm

There is no adaptive spawning anymore in recent lighttpd releases. For dynamic management of PHP processes, you can use php-fpm.

# pacman -S php-fpm
# rc.d start php-fpm

Note: You can configure the number of servers in the pool and tweak other configuration options by editing the file /etc/php/php-fpm.conf. More details on php-fpm can be found on the php-fpm website. You should also note that when you make changes to /etc/php/php.ini you will need to restart php-fpm

In /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/fastcgi.conf add:

server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" )

index-file.names += ( "index.php" ) 

fastcgi.server = (
    ".php" => (
      "localhost" => ( 
        "socket" => "/var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock",
        "broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
      ))
)

eAccelerator

Install eaccelerator^AUR from the AUR.

Add own config file for eaccelerator:

/etc/php/conf.d/eaccelerator-own.ini

zlib.output_compression = On
cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
eaccelerator.cache_dir="/home/phpuser/eaccelerator/cache"

Tip: I additionally set safe_mod to On in my setup, but this is not required.

Try a php page

Create the following php page, name it index.php, and place a copy in both /srv/http/ and /srv/http-ssl/html/

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Try navigating with a web browser to both the http and https address of your server. You should see the phpinfo page.

Check eaccelerator caching:

# ls -l /home/phpuser/eaccelerator/cache

If the above command outputs the following:

-rw-------  1 phpuser phpuser 456 2005-05-05 14:53 eaccelerator-277.58081
-rw-------  1 phpuser phpuser 452 2005-05-05 14:53 eaccelerator-277.88081

Then eaccelerator is happily caching your php scripts to help speed things up.

Ruby on Rails

Install and configure FastCGI. (See #FastCGI above.)

Install ruby from [extra] and ruby-fcgi^AUR from AUR.

Follow instructions on RubyOnRails.

Python FastCGI

Install flup

# pacman -S python-flup

Configure:

fastcgi.server = (
    ".py" =>
    (
        "python-fcgi" =>
        (
        "socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/fastcgi.python.socket",
         "bin-path" => "test.py",
         "check-local" => "disable",
         "max-procs" => 1,
        )
    )
)

Put the test.py in the root of your server (don't forget to chmod +x it)

#!/usr/bin/env python

def myapp(environ, start_response):
    print 'got request: %s' % environ
    start_response('200 OK', [('Content-Type', 'text/plain')])
    return ['Hello World!']

if __name__ == '__main__':
    from flup.server.fcgi import WSGIServer
    WSGIServer(myapp).run()

Thanks to firecat53 for his explanation

SSL

Generate an SSL Cert, e.g. like that:

# mkdir /etc/lighttpd/certs
# openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 7300 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem -out /etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem
# chmod 600 /etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem

Edit /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf. To make lighttpd SSL-only (you probably need to set the server port to 443 as well)

ssl.engine = "enable" 
ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem"

To enable SSL in addition to normal HTTP

$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" {
    ssl.engine                  = "enable" 
    ssl.pemfile                 = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem" 
 }

If you want to serve different sites, you can change the document root inside the socket conditional:

$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" {
    server.document-root = "/srv/ssl" # use your ssl directory here
    ssl.engine                 = "enable"
    ssl.pemfile                = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem"  # use the path where you created your pem file
 }

or as alternative you can use the scheme conditional to distinguish between secure and normal requests.

$HTTP["scheme"] == "https" {
    server.document-root = "/srv/ssl" # use your ssl directory here
    ssl.engine                 = "enable"
    ssl.pemfile                = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem"  # use the path where you created your pem file
 }

Note that you cannot use the scheme conditional around ssl.engine above, since lighttpd needs to know on what port to enable SSL.

Server Name Indication

To use SNI with lighttpd, simply put additional ssl.pemfile configuration directives inside host conditionals. It seems a default ssl.pemfile is still required, though.

$HTTP["host"] == "www.example.org" {
        ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.org.pem" 
    }

$HTTP["host"] == "mail.example.org" {
        ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/mail.example.org.pem" 
    }

Redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS

You should add "mod_redirect" in server.modules array in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

server.modules              = (
                                     ...
                                "mod_redirect", 
                                     ...
)

$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" {
  $HTTP["host"] =~ "example.org" {
    url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://example.org/$1" )
    server.name                 = "example.org" 
  }
}

$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" {
  ssl.engine = "enable" 
  ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/server.pem" 
  server.document-root = "..." 
}

To redirect all hosts to their secure equivalents use the following in place of the socket 80 configuration above:

$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" {
  $HTTP["host"] =~ "(.*)" {
    url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://%1/$1" )
  }
}

To redirect all hosts for part of the site (e.g. secure or phpmyadmin):

$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" {
  $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/secure" {
    url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://example.com/$1" )
  }
}

Output Compression

In /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf add

var.cache_dir           = "/var/cache/lighttpd"

Then create directory for a compressed files:

# mkdir /var/cache/lighttpd/compress
# chown http:http /var/cache/lighttpd/compress

Copy example configuration file:

# mkdir /etc/lighttpd/conf.d
# cp /usr/share/doc/lighttpd/config/conf.d/compress.conf /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/

Add following in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

include "conf.d/compress.conf"

Troubleshooting

Lighttpd downloads .php files

If lighttpd downloads .php files instead of "initializing" them you probably missed to add these lines to your /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf.

server.modules = (
                   "mod_fastcgi",
                 )

fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => ((
                     "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi", #depends where your php-cgi has been installed. Default here.
                     "socket" => "/tmp/php.socket",
                     "max-procs" => 2,
                     "bin-environment" => (
                       "PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "16",
                       "PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "10000"
                     ),
                     "bin-copy-environment" => (
                       "PATH", "SHELL", "USER"
                     ),
                     "broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
                 )))

Styles (CSS) not working properly

The default lighttpd config does not include a mimetype definition for CSS so when standards compliant browsers get text/html instead of text/css they get confused and nothing displays properly. To fix this add an entry for CSS.

mimetype.assign	= (
  ".html" => "text/html",
  ".txt" => "text/plain",
  ".jpg" => "image/jpeg",
  ".png" => "image/png",
  ".css" => "text/css"
)

New lines are not needed and are only used here for readability.

See also

• Lighttpd wiki