KfWiki: Lighttpd

Lighttpd

lighttpd seems to be picking up momentum as a high performance alternative to apache.

Installation

Configure options:

./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc/lighttpd --disable-ipv6 --with-openssl=/usr

Configuration

One can use the sample config under lighttpd-src/docs/lighttpd.conf and make modifications.

Server tuning
server.network-backend - http://www.lighttpd.net/benchmark

server.max-fds = 4096 # open files
server.max-worker = 2 # this may cause issue with access logs
server.use-ipv6 = "disable" # no point
server.event-handler = "linux-sysepoll" # linux specific
server.network-backend = "gthread-aio" # sendfile() minimizes the work in the application and pushes a file directly into the network card. 
# gthread-aio balance between big and small files. posix-aio is good for large files, writev is good for small ones.

SSL

Check that lighttpd has ssl support

> lighttpd -v
lighttpd-1.4.13 (ssl) - a light and fast webserver

Then add these to lighttpd.conf. No need to add 443 to server.port

$SERVER["socket"] == "206.188.19.110:443" {
ssl.engine = "enable"
ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/web.adblade.com.pem"
ssl.ca-file = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/gd_bundle.crt"
server.name = "web.adblade.com"
server.document-root = "/home/admin/httpdocs"
}

Starting

lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

php as fastcgi

lighttpd.conf

fastcgi.server = ( ".php" =>

    ( "localhost" =>

        (

            "socket" => "/tmp/php-fastcgi.socket",

            "bin-path" => "/usr/local/php-fcgi/bin/php"

        )

    )

)

tunings on fastcgi

# theory 1 - 2 lighttpd processes, many php children. reason for 2 processes is for redundancy. If one process dies, all php children die too.
fastcgi.server             = ( ".php" =>
( "localhost" =>
(                                    
"socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket",                                    
"bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/php-cgi",
"min-procs" => 2,
"max-procs" => 2,
"kill-signal" => 9,
"idle-timeout" => 30,
"bin-environment" => (
"PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "16",
"PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "1000"
))))

# theory 2 - more lighttpd processes, 1 php child per proc
fastcgi.server             = ( ".php" =>
( "localhost" =>
(                                    
"socket" => "/var/run/lighttpd/php-fastcgi.socket",                                    
"bin-path" => "/usr/local/bin/php-cgi",
"min-procs" => 25,
"max-procs" => 50,
"kill-signal" => 9,
"idle-timeout" => 30,
)))

php (lighttpd 1.5+)

Run a fastcgi background process, and use mod_proxy to connect to it.

 /usr/bin/spawn-fcgi -s /tmp/php-fastcgi.sock -f /usr/bin/php-cgi -uwww -g www -C 5 -P /var/run/spawn-fcgi.pid

lighttpd.conf

server.modules += ( "mod_proxy_backend_fastcgi" )

$HTTP["url"] =~ "\.php$" {

       proxy-core.balancer = "round-robin"

       proxy-core.allow-x-sendfile = "enable"

#       proxy-core.check-local = "enable"

       proxy-core.protocol = "fastcgi"

       proxy-core.backends = ( "unix:/tmp/php-fastcgi.sock" )

       proxy-core.max-pool-size = 16

}

Tomcat (lighttpd 1.5+)

lighttpd.conf

server.modules  += ( "mod_proxy_core",  "mod_proxy_backend_ajp13" )

$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/(tomcat|xwiki)" {

  proxy-core.balancer = "round-robin"

  proxy-core.protocol = "ajp13"

  proxy-core.backends = ( "localhost:8009" )

  proxy-core.max-pool-size = 16

}

Redirect

   $HTTP["url"] !~ "^/admin" {
		url.redirect = ( "(.*)" => "www.mentalhelp.net$1" )
   }

		   $HTTP["querystring"] == "page=home" {
				$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/home.html" {
						url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "/index.html" )
				}
		   }

http proxy

$HTTP["host"] =~ "www\.foobar\.com" {
		# proxy everything except images
		$HTTP["url"] !~ "^/images" {
		# If no file extension is needed, put "" as the first argument
			proxy.server = ( "" =>
			( (
					"host" => "127.0.0.1",
					"port" => 18080
			) )
			)
		}
		server.document-root = "/usr/local/jira/atlassian-jira"
		accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/jira.log"
}


	proxy.server = ( ".jsp" =>
					   ( ( 
						   "host" => "10.0.0.242",
						   "port" => 81
						 ) )
					 )

simple vhost

$HTTP["host"] =~ "domain1\.com" {
			server.document-root = "/home/lighttpd/domain1.com/http"
			accesslog.filename         = "/home/lighttpd/domain1.com/logs/access.log"
}

evhost vhost

evhost is a very powerful vhost configuration tool. if one doesn't wrap the evhost directive around with a socket match, it will serve request for 0.0.0.0:*. Not a problem if all the sites are ran on the same IP and no SSL sites are served. Otherwise, the following example uses evhosts in conjunction with simple vhost to serve plain and secure sites:

$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:80" { 
	evhost.path-pattern        = "/home/sites/www.%0/web/"
}

$SERVER["socket"] == "1.2.3.4:443" { 
	ssl.engine                  = "enable" 
	ssl.pemfile                 = "/home/sites/www.domain.tld.pem" 
	server.document-root        = "/home/sites/www.domain.tld/web" 
}

evhost variable:

%0 => domain name + tld
%1 => tld
%2 => domain name without tld
%3 => subdomain 1 name
%4 => subdomain 2 name

Lighttpd init script

#!/bin/sh

#

# lighttpd     Startup script for the lighttpd server

#

# chkconfig: - 85 15

# description: Lightning fast webserver with light system requirements

#

# processname: lighttpd

# config: /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

# config: /etc/sysconfig/lighttpd

# pidfile: /var/run/lighttpd.pid

#

# Note: pidfile is assumed to be created

# by lighttpd (config: server.pid-file).

# If not, uncomment 'pidof' line.

# Source function library

. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions

if [ -f /etc/sysconfig/lighttpd ]; then

    . /etc/sysconfig/lighttpd

fi

if [ -z "$LIGHTTPD_CONF_PATH" ]; then

    LIGHTTPD_CONF_PATH="/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf"

fi

prog="lighttpd"

lighttpd="/usr/sbin/lighttpd"

RETVAL=0

start() {

    echo "Starting fcgi server"

    spawn-fcgi -s /tmp/php-fastcgi.sock -f /usr/bin/php-cgi -ulighttpd -glighttpd -C3 -P /tmp/spawn-fcgi.pid

    echo -n $"Starting $prog: "

    daemon $lighttpd -f $LIGHTTPD_CONF_PATH

    RETVAL=$?

    echo

    [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && touch /var/lock/subsys/$prog

    return $RETVAL

}

stop() {

    echo "Stopping fcgi server"

    killproc -p /tmp/spawn-fcgi.pid

    echo -n $"Stopping $prog: "

    killproc -p /var/run/lighttpd.pid

    RETVAL=$?

    echo

    [ $RETVAL -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/$prog

    return $RETVAL

}

reload() {

    echo -n $"Reloading $prog: "

    killproc $lighttpd -HUP

    RETVAL=$?

    echo

    return $RETVAL

}

case "$1" in

    start)

        start

        ;;

    stop)

        stop

        ;;

    restart)

        stop

        start

        ;;

    condrestart)

        if [ -f /var/lock/subsys/$prog ]; then

            stop

            start

        fi

        ;;

    reload)

        reload

        ;;

    status)

        status $lighttpd

        RETVAL=$?

        ;;

    *)

        echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|condrestart|reload|status}"

        RETVAL=1

esac

exit $RETVAL

Rewrite

Interesting pass through example. This also demonstrated how different lighttpd's rewrite is than apache's

  url.rewrite-once = (
   "^/images/.*$" => "$0",
   "^/dispatch.php.*$" => "$0",
   "^/sitemap.xml" => "$0",  
   "^/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$" => "/dispatch.php?arg1=$1&arg2=$2&arg3=$3",
   "^/([^/]+)/([^/]+)/?$" => "/dispatch.php?arg1=$1&arg2=$2",
   "^/([^/]+)/?$" => "/dispatch.php?arg1=$1"
  )

KfWiki : Lighttpd

Lighttpd

Installation

Configuration

SSL

Starting

php as fastcgi

tunings on fastcgi

php (lighttpd 1.5+)

Tomcat (lighttpd 1.5+)

Redirect

http proxy

simple vhost

evhost vhost

Lighttpd init script

Rewrite