Redhat Enterprise Linux 5 – lighttpd 1.5.0 installation

by Vivek Gite on April 2, 2007 · 10 comments

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