========
lighttpd
========
-------------
a light httpd
-------------
:abstract:
lighttpd a secure, fast, compliant and very flexible web-server
which 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 is suffering load problems.
:documentation:
https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/
the naming
----------
lighttpd is a __httpd__ which is
- fast as __light__ning and
- __light__ when it comes to memory consumption and system requirements
Features
--------
Network
```````
- IPv4, IPv6
Protocols
`````````
- HTTP/2 (https://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc7540.txt)
- HTTP/1.1 (https://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt)
- HTTP/1.0 (https://tools.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1945.txt)
- HTTPS (via one of openssl, BoringSSL, LibreSSL, mbedTLS, wolfSSL, GnuTLS, NSS)
- CGI/1.1 (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3875.txt)
- FastCGI (http://www.fastcgi.com/devkit/doc/fcgi-spec.html)
Advanced Features
`````````````````
- load-balanced FastCGI, SCGI, reverse-proxy, socket proxy, websocket tunnel
(one webserver distributes requests to multiple PHP-servers via FastCGI)
- streaming FastCGI, SCGI, reverse-proxy, socket proxy, websocket tunnel
- custom error pages (for Response-Code 400-599)
- virtual hosts
- directory listings
- URL-Rewriting
- HTTP-Redirection
- output-compression with transparent caching
FastCGI-Support
```````````````
- parses the Response-header and completes the HTTP-header accordingly
- Keep-Alive handling based on Content-Length header
PHP-Support
```````````
- same speed as or faster than apache + mod_php4
- handles various PHP bugs in the FastCGI SAPI
- includes a utility to spawn FastCGI processes (necessary for PHP 4.3.x)
Security features
`````````````````
- chroot(), set UID, set GID
- protecting docroot
HTTP/1.1 features
`````````````````
- Ranges (start-end, start-, -end, multiple ranges)
- HTTP/1.0 Keep-Alive + HTTP/1.1 persistent Connections
- methods: GET, HEAD, POST
- Last-Modified + If-Modified handling
- sends Content-Length if possible
- sends Transfer-Encoding: chunk, if Content-Length is not possible
- sends Content-Type
- on-the-fly output compression (deflate, gzip)
- authentication: basic and digest
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2617.txt)
HTTP/1.1 compliance
```````````````````
- Sends 206 for Range Requests
- Sends 304 for If-Modified Requests
- Sends 400 for missing Host on HTTP/1.1 requests
- Sends 400 for broken Request-Line
- Sends 411 for missing Content-Length on POST requests
- Sends 416 for "out-of-range" on Range: Header
- Sends 501 for request-method != (GET|POST|HEAD)
- Sends 505 for protocol != HTTP/1.0 or HTTP/1.1
- Sends Date: on every requests
Intended Audience
-----------------
- Ad-Server Front-Ends ("Banner-Schleuder")
- delivering small files rapidly
- php-servers under high load
(load-balancing the php-request over multiple PHP-servers)
Works with
----------
It has been tested to work with
- IE 6.0
- Mozilla 1.x
- Konqueror 3.1
(for Keep-Alive/Persistent Connections, Accept-Encoding for PHP + gzip)
- wget
(for Resuming)
- acrobat plugin
(for multiple ranges)
Works on
--------
lighttpd has been verified to compile and work on
- Linux
- FreeBSD
- NetBSD
- OpenBSD
- Solaris 8 + 9
- SGI IRIX 6.5
- Windows (when compiled under cygwin)
(and will likely compile and run on most unix-like systems with C99 compiler)
-----------------
Starting lighttpd
-----------------
As daemon in the background: ::
$ lighttpd -f <configfile>
or without detaching from the console: ::
$ lighttpd -D -f <configfile>
