Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 – lighttpd 1.5.0 installation

by nixCraft on April 2, 2007 · 10 comments· Last updated April 9, 2007

Lighttpd 1.5.0 pre release is now available for download. There are some nice and good features. Many things have been improved, changed and added. New mod-proxy-core is much better as compare to old mod-fastcgi/mod_cgi.

On other hand Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 comes with
=> PHP5 fastcgi binary (/usr/bin/php-cgi)
=> MySQL 5
=> And nice latest and stable stuff.

My old lighttpd howtos all are based upon 1.4.x series. Most of those howtos are still valid I will add only new stuff here.

Note following instructions are 100% compatible with latest version of Fedora Core and Cent OS (based upon RHEL 5.x)

Download lighttpd

Download and untar lighttpd-1.5.0-r1691.tar.gz tar ball
# cd /opt # wget http://www.lighttpd.net/assets/2007/2/23/lighttpd-1.5.0-r1691.tar.gz # tar -zxvf lighttpd-1.5.0-r1691.tar.gz

Install all nessary development libraries

You need to install following libraries to compile required modules and features:

glib2-devel : Gnome header files for version 2 of the GLib library
openssl-devel – Used by core and SSL support
pcre-devel - Used by mod_redirect, mod_rewrite,
bzip2-devel - Use by compress-bzip2
zlib-devel - Used by compress-gzip and compress-deflate. It contains the header files and libraries.

# yum install glib2-devel openssl-devel pcre-devel bzip2-devel gzip-devel

Configure lighttpd

Configure required modules and features:
# ./configure --program-prefix= --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/usr/com --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --with-openssl

Install lighttpd

Just compile and install lighttpd:
# make # make install

Add necessary user/group and directories

First add lighttpd user:
# adduser -m -d /var/www -s /sbin/nologin lighttpd
Next create configuration directories:
# mkdir /etc/lighttpd/ # mkdir /etc/lighttpd/ssl # mkdir /var/log/lighttpd # mkdir -p /var/www/html # chown lighttpd:lighttpd /var/log/lighttpd

Lighttpd basic configuration

Now you need to create basic configuration file. Just grab my default configuration file:
# cd /etc/lighttpd # wget http://www.cyberciti.biz/files/lighttpd/1.5.0/lighttpd.conf.txt # mv lighttpd.conf.txt lighttpd.confMake changes as per your setup:
# vi lighttpd.conf
Copy lighttpd init.d file:
# cd /etc/init.d # wget http://www.cyberciti.biz/files/lighttpd/1.5.0/lighttpd.init.d.txt # mv lighttpd.init.d.txt lighttpd # chmod +x lighttpd # chkconfig on lighttpd
spawn-fcgi is used to spawn remote FastCGI processes such as php. This is a new change in this version. Both of above lighttpd init.d and lighttpd scripts are patched to support spawn-fcgi automatically.

Caution: Do not use lighttpd 1.4.x series configuration files.

Start lighttpd

My setup:
# uname -mrs
Output:

Linux 2.6.18-8.1.1.el5 x86_64

# cat /etc/redhat-release
Output:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5 (Tikanga)

# lighttpd -v
Output:

lighttpd-1.5.0 (ssl) - a light and fast webserver
Build-Date: Mar 31 2007 13:40:13

Now start lighttpd:
# /etc/init.d/lighttpd start

Starting lighttpd: mod_proxy_core_address.c.63: (trace) adding unix:/tmp/php-fastcgi.sock to the address-pool
                                                           [  OK  ]
spawn-fcgi.c.209: child spawned successfully: PID: 6344

Make sure lighttpd is listing and bind to port 80:
# netstat -tulpn | grep :80
Output:

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80                  0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      6436/lighttpd