Guide to Installing Lighttpd on Debian 12 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Why Choose Lighttpd?

When speed and low memory usage matter, Lighttpd shines. Its event-driven architecture handles thousands of simultaneous connections without spawning extra processes or threads. This means:

• Rock-Solid Performance: Able to serve high-traffic sites or APIs without maxing out CPU/memory.
• Minimal Footprint: Perfect for small‐scale VPS instances, containerized deployments, or a Raspberry Pi.
• Sane Defaults & Security: Chroot and setuid/setgid support, plus secure default settings.
• Modular Design: Enable only the modules you actually need (CGI, FastCGI, SSL, URL rewriting, and more).
• Straightforward Configuration: No need to wade through pages of directives—just the essentials.

Whether you’re hosting a static blog, prototyping a web service, or running a small CMS, Lighttpd gives you a lean server that’s easy to tweak.

Prerequisites

1. Debian 12 (Bookworm) or Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
   • A VPS or physical server running one of these distributions.
   • Root access or a user in the sudo group.
2. System Preparation

sudo apt update 
sudo apt upgrade -y 
sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/Newyork 
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

1. Installing Lighttpd

• Refresh Package Lists & Install
  

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install -y lighttpd

• Verify the Service

sudo systemctl status lighttpd

• If it’s not running:

sudo systemctl start lighttpd

• Enable at boot:

sudo systemctl enable lighttpd

2. Testing Your Setup

Open a browser to http://<your-server-ip>/. You should see the default Lighttpd welcome page:

It works!

If you don’t see it, check:

• Lighttpd is running:

sudo systemctl status lighttpd

• Port 80 is open in the firewall.

3. Adjusting Firewall Rules (ufw)

sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw status

If you use iptables or another firewall, open ports 80 and 443 accordingly.

4. Lighttpd File Layout

Drop your HTML/PHP files into /var/www/html/ to serve them immediately.

5. Basic Server Management

• Restart (after config changes):

sudo systemctl restart lighttpd

• Reload (no full restart):

sudo systemctl reload lighttpd

• Stop the service:

sudo systemctl stop lighttpd

6. Enabling & Using Modules

Lighttpd’s modular design means you only load what you need. Use lighty-enable-mod to activate modules.

• Enable mod_rewrite (for “pretty URLs”):

sudo lighty-enable-mod rewrite 
sudo systemctl reload lighttpd

• Enable mod_ssl (for HTTPS support):

sudo lighty-enable-mod ssl 
sudo systemctl reload lighttpd 

• After enabling mod_ssl, you’ll need a valid SSL certificate (see Section 9).
• Enable PHP via FastCGI

sudo apt install -y php8.2-cgi 
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi 
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi-php 
sudo systemctl reload lighttpd

• Now any .php file in /var/www/html/ is processed by PHP.

7. Tweaking the Configuration

Always back up before editing:

sudo cp /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf.bak
sudo nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Common Tweaks

• Change the Document Root

server.document-root = "/var/www/html" 
# Example: change to /srv/www/site1 
server.document-root = "/srv/www/site1"

• Hide Server Tokens (for Privacy)

server.tag = ""

• Custom Error Pages

server.error-handler-404 = "/custom-404.html" 
server.error-handler-500 = "/custom-500.html"

• Adjust Max Connections

server.max-connections = 2048

After editing, reload:

sudo systemctl reload lighttpd

8. Serving Multiple Sites (Virtual Hosts)

1. Create a directory for each site

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/example.com 
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/example.com

1. Create a new vhost config (/etc/lighttpd/conf-available/example.com.conf):

$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:80" { 
server.name = "example.com" 
server.document-root = "/var/www/example.com" 
accesslog.filename = "/var/log/lighttpd/example.com-access.log" 
server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/example.com-error.log" 
}

1. Enable the new configuration

sudo ln -s /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/example.com.conf /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/10-example.com.conf 
sudo systemctl reload lighttpd

Repeat for additional sites. For HTTPS, add a block with "$SERVER[\"socket\"] == \"0.0.0.0:443\"" and SSL directives.

9. Automating SSL with Let’s Encrypt

1. Install Certbot & Lighttpd Plugin

sudo apt install -y certbot python3-certbot-lighttpd

1. Obtain & Install a Certificate

sudo certbot --lighttpd

• Prompts for your domain names.
• Automatically updates Lighttpd to use the new certificate.
• Sets up auto-renewal.

• Verify HTTPS Access
  Visit https://example.com/—you should see a valid certificate.
  Test renewal:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

10. Keeping Security Tight

• Run as Non-Privileged User
  Lighttpd defaults to www-data. Verify with:

ps aux | grep lighttpd

• Restrict Access to Sensitive Paths
  In your site’s config (e.g., /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/example.com.conf):

$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/admin/" {
 url.access-deny = ( "" ) 
 }

• Keep Packages Up to Date

sudo apt update 
sudo apt upgrade -y

• Harden PHP (if used)
  Edit /etc/php/8.2/cgi/php.ini (or PHP-FPM’s php.ini):

disable_functions = exec,passthru,shell_exec,system 
open_basedir = /var/www/html/:/tmp/ 
display_errors = Off

• Limit File Upload Sizes
  In your FastCGI config (e.g., /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/10-fastcgi.conf):

fastcgi.server = ( ".php" =>
    ( "localhost" =>
        (
            "socket"         => "/run/lighttpd/php.socket",
            "bin-path"       => "/usr/bin/php-cgi",
            "min-procs"      => 1,
            "max-procs"      => 5,
            "max-request-size" => 10485760  # 10 MB
        )
    )
)

11. When to Use Lighttpd

• Static Site Hosting
  Instant, ultra-fast delivery of HTML/CSS/JS/images on a small VPS.
• Embedded or Low-Power Devices
  Raspberry Pi dashboards, IoT endpoints, intranet tools.
• Rapid Prototyping
  Spin up a minimal LAMP/LEMP‐style environment for PHP or Python (via FastCGI).
• Secure File Sharing
  Lightweight file downloads behind basic authentication.

Ready to Go?

1. Place your files into /var/www/html/ (or your custom document root).
2. Edit /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf or drop virtual host files into /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/ and enable them.
3. Reload Lighttpd:

sudo systemctl reload lighttpd

1. Visit http://<your-server-ip>/ or https://<your-domain>/ (if using SSL).

You’ll have a lean, stable web server—ready to handle static or dynamic content with minimal fuss. Enjoy!