Lighttpd

Andre Bogus

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Overview

Table of Contents

The Author

Reviews

Downloads

Install, configure, and work with Lighttpd
Migrate from Apache to Lighttpd
Set up Ruby on Rails, WordPress, MediaWiki etc.
Understand and harness Lua/FastCGI
Write custom modules/plugins for the Lighttpd API

Book Details

Language : English
Paperback : 236 pages [ 235mm x 191mm ]
Release Date : October 2008
ISBN : 1847192106
ISBN 13 : 978-1-847192-10-3
Author(s) : Andre Bogus
Topics and Technologies : All Books, Linux Servers, Open Source

Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction to Lighttpd
Chapter 2: Configuring and Running Lighttpd
Chapter 3: More Virtual Hosting and CGI
Chapter 4: Downloads and Streams
Chapter 5: Big Brother Lighttpd
Chapter 6: Encryption: SSL
Chapter 7: Securing Lighttpd
Chapter 8: Containing Lighttpd
Chapter 9: Optimizing Lighttpd
Chapter 10: Migration from Apache
Chapter 11: CGI Revisited
Chapter 12: Using Lua with Lighttpd
Chapter 13: Writing Lighttpd Modules
Appendix A: HTTP Status Codes
Appendix B: Module/Configuration Index
Index

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction to Lighttpd
- Installing Lighttpd
- Building Lighttpd using Autotools
- Building Lighttpd using CMake
- Summary

Chapter 2: Configuring and Running Lighttpd
- Starting Lighttpd by Hand
- Other Core Options
- Mime Types
- Selectors
  - Excursion: Regular Expressions
    - Play it Again, Sam
    - Are You There?
    - Decisions, Decisions
    - Group and Capture
    - Lucky Escape
- Rewriting and Redirecting Requests
- Including Variables, Files, and Shell-code
- Summary

Chapter 3: More Virtual Hosting and CGI
- Extended Virtual Hosting
- MySQL based Virtual Hosting
  - Installing MySQL
  - Bringing MySQL and mod_mysqlvhost Together
- Going Dynamic
- CGI with mod_cgi
- FastCGI
- SCGI
- mod_proxy_core and backends
- Summary

Chapter 4: Downloads and Streams
- Core Settings
- Traffic Shaping
- Showing Directory Contents
- Securing Downloads
- Streaming Content
- Putting it All Together
- Summary

Chapter 5: Big Brother Lighttpd
- Privacy
- O Browser, Where Art Thou?
- Access Logging
- Tracking Users
- Other Data Points
- Summary

Chapter 6: Encryption: SSL
- Self-Signed Keys
- Being our own Certificate Authority
- Obtaining a Key Pair from a Third-Party Supplier
- Configuring Lighttpd to use SSL
- Summary

Chapter 7: Securing Lighttpd
- Barriers to Entry
- Evading Denial of Service Attacks
  - Setting up Logrotate
- Know Your Foe
  - RRDtool
  - Grepping the Logs
- Summary

Chapter 8: Containing Lighttpd
- Giving up Privileges
- Changing Root
- Separating the Backend
- Summary

Chapter 9: Optimizing Lighttpd
- Installing http_load
  - Running http_load Tests
- Specific Optimizations
  - Example: Caching with mod_magnet
  - Measuring System Load
- Profiling with gprof
  - Load Testing our Profiling Build
- Summary

Chapter 10: Migration from Apache
- Adding Lighttpd to the Mix
- Excursion: mod_proxy
- Reducing Apache Load
- mod_perl, mod_php, and mod_python
- .htaccess
  - .htaccess and PHP
- Rewriting Rules
- WebDAV
- Summary

Chapter 11: CGI Revisited
- Ruby on Rails
- WordPress
- phpMyAdmin
- MediaWiki
- Trac
- AWStats
- AjaxTerm
- Summary

Chapter 12: Using Lua with Lighttpd
- Lua: A small Primer
- Useful Lua Libraries
- Lua/FastCGI
  - Installing Lua/FastCGI
    - GET and POST Requests
    - Looking at the Cache
- Running mod_magnet
- Example: A Shoutbox
- Summary

Chapter 13: Writing Lighttpd Modules
- Handling Configuration
- Rewriting the Request
- Manipulating the Response
- Summary

Appendix A: HTTP Status Codes

Appendix B: Module/Configuration Index
- Internal
- mod_accesslog
- mod_alias
- mod_auth
- mod_cgi
- mod_cml
- mod_chunked
- mod_compress
- mod_deflate
- mod_dirlisting
- mod_evasive
- mod_evhost
- mod_expire
- mod_fastcgi
- mod_flv_streaming
- mod_indexfile
- mod_magnet
- mod_proxy
- mod_proxy_core
- mod_redirect
- mod_rewrite
- mod_rrdtool
- mod_scgi
- mod_secure_download
- mod_setenv
- mod_simple_vhost
- mod_sql_vhost_core, mod_mysql_vhost
- mod_ssi
- mod_staticfile
- mod_status
- mod_trigger_b4_dl
- mod_uploadprogress
- mod_webdav

Index

Andre Bogus

Andre Bogus is a musician turned programmer. He has worked in different jobs from voice acting to programming to teaching to managing software projects. At the moment he works as a consultant and implementer for KOGIT GmbH, an Identity Management company based in Germany.

He found Lighttpd while searching for the ideal software for his personal web server and quickly learned the tricks to make it do what he wanted. He enjoys learning new things and telling others about them. When his full schedule allows it, he can be found on the #lighttpd IRC channel.

I’d like to recommend it to all web services administrators (even if they do not use lighttpd yet) – this book explains many fundamental things that you’d really like to know.

I can recommend the book to administrators and web developers.

Sample chapters

You can view our sample chapters and prefaces of this title on PacktLib or download sample chapters in PDF format.

Find your book in our support section to find errata and to download code samples.

What you will learn from this book

The book teaches the reader to install, configure, and work with Lighttpd:

Working with Lighttpd 's web application interfaces
Configuring Lighttpd to use SSL
Preventing attacks and minimizing damage if attacked
Virtual hosting
Migration from Apache to Lighttpd
Setting up web applications and frameworks: Ruby on Rails, WordPress, MediaWiki, trac, AjaxTerm, and more
Understand and harness Lua/FastCGI
Writing custom modules/plugins for the Lighttpd API

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In Detail

Lighttpd is a secure, flexible, and most importantly, light web server designed and optimized for high performance environments. It is open-source and licensed under the revised BSD license. Its event-driven architecture optimized for a large number of parallel connections, its advanced features (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output Compression, URL Rewriting, and many more), and its small memory footprint compared to other web servers, make Lighttpd the perfect server software for every web server that suffers load problems or for serving static media separately from dynamic content.

Lighttpd supports the FastCGI, SCGI, and CGI interfaces to external programs, permitting web applications written in any programming language to be used with this server. Excellent performance for PHP, a particularly popular language, has received special attention. Additionally, Lighttpd has become popular within the Ruby on Rails community.

This is your fast guide to getting started and getting inside the Lighttpd web server. Written from a developer's perspective, this book helps you understand Lighttpd, and get it set up as securely and quickly as possible.

Approach

Who this book is for

This book is for System Administrators or Web Developers seeking a lean deployment platform for web applications or who want to switch to a "lighter" web server than Apache.