Production Web server: Lighttpd: Difference between revisions
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[ | [https://www.lighttpd.net/ lighttpd] is a simple, standards-compliant, secure, and flexible web server. | ||
== Lighttpd Installation == | == Lighttpd Installation == | ||
This production environment will handle only the necessary packages... so no doc or manpages allowed. | |||
# make the htdocs public web root directories | |||
# added the service to the default runlevel, not to boot, because need networking activated | |||
# start the web server service | |||
# make the | |||
# added the | |||
# | |||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
<nowiki> | <nowiki> | ||
mkdir -p /var/www/localhost/htdocs /var/log/lighttpd /var/lib/lighttpd | mkdir -p /var/www/localhost/htdocs /var/log/lighttpd /var/lib/lighttpd | ||
chown -R lighttpd:lighttpd /var/www/localhost/ /var/log/lighttpd /var/lib/lighttpd | |||
chown -R lighttpd:lighttpd /var/www/localhost/ | |||
rc-update add lighttpd default | rc-update add lighttpd default | ||
Line 42: | Line 24: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
'''For testing open a | '''For testing, open a browser and go to <code><nowiki>http://<webserveripaddres></nowiki></code> and you will see "it works"'''. The "webserveripaddres" is the ip address of your setup/server machine. | ||
=== Controlling Lighttpd === | === Controlling Lighttpd === | ||
'''''Start lighttpd''''' | '''''Start lighttpd''''': | ||
{{Cmd|rc-service lighttpd start}} | {{Cmd|rc-service lighttpd start}} | ||
You will get | You will get feedback about the status. | ||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
Line 61: | Line 39: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
'''''Stop lighttpd''''' | '''''Stop lighttpd''''': | ||
{{Cmd|rc-service lighttpd stop}} | {{Cmd|rc-service lighttpd stop}} | ||
'''''Restart lighttpd''''': After changing the configuration file lighttpd needs to be restarted. | '''''Restart lighttpd''''': After changing the configuration file, lighttpd needs to be restarted. | ||
{{Cmd|rc-service lighttpd restart}} | {{Cmd|rc-service lighttpd restart}} | ||
'''''Proper Runlevel''''': By default no services are added to start process, sysadmin must know what we want and what will services do, also other main reason are due in dockers there's no runlevels per se and Alpine linux are mostly used in dockers containers. You must added the | '''''Proper Runlevel''''': By default no services are added to start process, sysadmin must know what we want and what will services do, also other main reason are due in dockers there's no runlevels per se and Alpine linux are mostly used in dockers containers. You must added the service only to the default runlevel, not to boot, because need networking activated | ||
{{Cmd|rc-update add lighttpd default}} | {{Cmd|rc-update add lighttpd default}} | ||
Line 75: | Line 53: | ||
== Lighttpd Configuration == | == Lighttpd Configuration == | ||
'''If you just want to serve simple HTML pages, lighttpd can be used out-of-box. No further configuration needed.''' | |||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/Docs_ConfigurationOptions lighttpd configuration options] | |||
=== Status page === | |||
'''Taking care of the status web server:''' those special pages are just minimal info of the running web server, are need to view from outside in a case of emergency, do not take the wrong approach of hide behind a filtered ip or filtered network, you must have access in all time in all the web to see problems. | |||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/mod_status mod_status] | |||
# Enable the mod_status at the config files | # Enable the mod_status at the config files | ||
# change path in the config file, we are using security by obfuscation | # change path in the config file (optional), we are using security by obfuscation | ||
# restart the service to see changes at the browser | # restart the service to see changes at the browser | ||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
<nowiki> | <nowiki> | ||
sed -i -r 's#\#.*mod_status.*,.*# "mod_status",#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf | sed -i -r 's#\#.*mod_status.*,.*# "mod_status",#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf | ||
Line 104: | Line 81: | ||
=== CGI bin directory support === | === CGI bin directory support === | ||
By default packages assign a directory under localhost main domain, other linux uses a global cgi directory and aliasing.. the most | By default packages assign a directory under localhost main domain, other linux uses a global cgi directory and aliasing.. the most professional way, but think about it, this per domain configuration allows isolation: | ||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/mod_cgi mod_cgi] | |||
# enable the mod_alias at the config file, due need of a specific path for cgi files into security | # enable the mod_alias at the config file, due need of a specific path for cgi files into security | ||
# create the directory | # create the directory | ||
# enable the config cgi file | # enable the config cgi file | ||
# restart the service to see changes at the browser | # restart the service to see changes at the browser | ||
Line 123: | Line 102: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
After that, all the files under the <code>/var/www/localhost/cgi-bin</code> directory will be | After that, all the files under the <code>/var/www/localhost/cgi-bin</code> directory will be accessed under <nowiki>http://localhost/cgi-bin/</nowiki> path | ||
.cgi and .pl scripts are run using /usr/bin/perl. Review and modify mod_cgi.conf others are needed. Then restart lighttpd to pick up the changes. | |||
=== Make special errors (404 or 500) pages for clients and visitors === | === Make special errors (404 or 500) pages for clients and visitors === | ||
These pages will be shown to visitors when a page or path is not present on the server, or when an internal error happens. | |||
These replace the default, minimal error pages and can be a nice message or "away from here" message: | |||
# create the directory for put the html files to show when | [https://wiki.lighttpd.net/Server_errorfile-prefixDetails server.errorfile-prefix] | ||
# create the directory for put the html files to show when those errors occur | |||
# create the simple files for each message in the directory | # create the simple files for each message in the directory | ||
# set the proper in the configuration file | # set the proper in the configuration file | ||
Line 163: | Line 143: | ||
=== Userdir public_html support === | === Userdir public_html support === | ||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/mod_userdir mod_userdir] | |||
== Lighttpd SSL support == | == Lighttpd SSL support == | ||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/Docs_SSL lighttpd TLS doc] | |||
Best way to do that | Create TLS configuration for lighttpd. Best way to do that is by external include files. Debian counterpart has a good mechanism that enables configuration files. We will add SSL support in a similar way. | ||
=== SSL : making self signed certificate === | === SSL : making self signed certificate === | ||
We need to created a | We need to created a self-signed certificate if we do not already have one: | ||
# install openssl | # install openssl | ||
Line 197: | Line 179: | ||
server.modules += ("mod_openssl") | server.modules += ("mod_openssl") | ||
\$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" { | \$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" { | ||
ssl.engine = "enable" | |||
ssl.pemfile = "/etc/ssl/certs/$(hostname -d).pem" | |||
} | } | ||
\$HTTP["scheme"] == "http" { | \$HTTP["scheme"] == "http" { | ||
url.redirect = ("" => "https://\${url.authority}\${url.path}\${qsa}") | |||
url.redirect-code = 308 | |||
} | } | ||
EOF | EOF | ||
Line 217: | Line 196: | ||
</pre> | </pre> | ||
For deploy usage of Lets Encrypt without chain-tools (just add water) read [ | For deploy usage of Lets Encrypt without chain-tools (just add water) read [https://wiki.lighttpd.net/HowToSimpleSSL HowToSimpleSSL]. | ||
== Lighttpd advanced == | == Lighttpd advanced == | ||
Lighttpd has pretty good default settings, but a few might be tweaked if we need to respond to higher server loads | Lighttpd has pretty good default settings, but a few might be tweaked if we need to respond to higher server loads. | ||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/Docs_ResourceTuning lighttpd resource tuning] | |||
=== Lighttpd tunning for aggressive load === | |||
[https://wiki.lighttpd.net/Docs_Performance lighttpd performance tuning] | |||
=== More connections, More File Descriptors === | === More connections, More File Descriptors === | ||
This must be used with caution | This must be used with caution. Everything is a file to a UNIX operating system. Well, every time a visitor accesses a page, lighttpd uses three file descriptors: An IP socket to the client, a FastCGI process socket, and a filehandle for the document accessed. Lighttpd stops accepting new connections when 90% of the available sockets are in use, restarting again when usage has fallen to 80%. With the default setting of 1024 file descriptors, lighttpd can handle a maximum of 307 connections. If this number are exceded file descriptor must be increrased then. This are a delicate tune due must be check your default with <code>cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max</code> and make sure it’s over 10,000: | ||
<pre> | <pre> | ||
Line 260: | Line 223: | ||
=== HTTP Keep-Alive for aggressive load === | === HTTP Keep-Alive for aggressive load === | ||
One reason that file descriptors get used up so quickly is HTTP keep-alive. To improve performance, modern web servers keep client connections alive to handle multiple requests instead of building up and tearing down connections for each item in a page. Keep-alive is tremendously beneficial to performance, but tends to keep unnecessary connections alive, too. | One reason that file descriptors get used up so quickly is HTTP keep-alive. To improve performance, modern web servers keep client connections alive to handle multiple requests instead of building up and tearing down connections for each item in a page. Keep-alive is tremendously beneficial to performance, but tends to keep unnecessary connections alive, too. lighttpd allows 1000 keep-alive requests per connection, allows idle sessions to remain alive for 5 seconds, and gives reads and writes 1 minute and 6 minutes to complete, respectively. | ||
# Maximum number of request within a keep-alive session before the server terminates the connection, default = | # Maximum number of request within a keep-alive session before the server terminates the connection, default = 1000 (<code>server.max-keep-alive-requests</code>) | ||
# Maximum number of seconds until an idling keep-alive connection is dropped, default = 5 (<code>server.max-keep-alive-idle</code>) | # Maximum number of seconds until an idling keep-alive connection is dropped, default = 5 (<code>server.max-keep-alive-idle</code>) | ||
# Maximum number of seconds until a waiting, non keep-alive read times out and closes the connection, default = 60 (<code>server.max-read-idle</code>) | # Maximum number of seconds until a waiting, non keep-alive read times out and closes the connection, default = 60 (<code>server.max-read-idle</code>) | ||
# Maximum number of seconds until a waiting write call times out and closes the connection, default = 360 (<code>server.max-write-idle</code>) | # Maximum number of seconds until a waiting write call times out and closes the connection, default = 360 (<code>server.max-write-idle</code>) | ||
Although lighttpd has pretty aggressive defaults (especially compared to Apache), a period of heavy traffic and a few slow clients could see many unused connections sticking around. The server.max-keep-alive-idle setting default of 5 seconds can be reduced to as low as 2, if you assume your clients are reasonably quick about requesting data, but a value of 3 or 4 is probably realistic. You may want to increase the server.max-keep-alive-requests value from the default of | Although lighttpd has pretty aggressive defaults (especially compared to Apache), a period of heavy traffic and a few slow clients could see many unused connections sticking around. The server.max-keep-alive-idle setting default of 5 seconds can be reduced to as low as 2, if you assume your clients are reasonably quick about requesting data, but a value of 3 or 4 is probably realistic. You may want to increase the server.max-keep-alive-requests value from the default of 1000, but you probably don’t need to. The server.max-read-idle and server.max-write-idle settings are tempting targets, but these situations are usually fairly rare so let’s not monkey with them. | ||
=== Lighttpd_Advanced_security === | === Lighttpd_Advanced_security === | ||
Line 278: | Line 241: | ||
* LAMP deploy of the Web Server with PHP, user html_dir and MariaDB: [[Production LAMP system: Lighttpd + PHP + MySQL]] | * LAMP deploy of the Web Server with PHP, user html_dir and MariaDB: [[Production LAMP system: Lighttpd + PHP + MySQL]] | ||
= See Also = | = See Also = | ||
* [[Production LAMP system: Lighttpd + PHP + MySQL]] | * [[Production LAMP system: Lighttpd + PHP + MySQL]] | ||
[[Category:Newbie]] | [[Category:Newbie]] |
Latest revision as of 03:22, 2 November 2023
lighttpd is a simple, standards-compliant, secure, and flexible web server.
Lighttpd Installation
This production environment will handle only the necessary packages... so no doc or manpages allowed.
- make the htdocs public web root directories
- added the service to the default runlevel, not to boot, because need networking activated
- start the web server service
mkdir -p /var/www/localhost/htdocs /var/log/lighttpd /var/lib/lighttpd chown -R lighttpd:lighttpd /var/www/localhost/ /var/log/lighttpd /var/lib/lighttpd rc-update add lighttpd default rc-service lighttpd restart echo "it works" > /var/www/localhost/htdocs/index.html
For testing, open a browser and go to http://<webserveripaddres>
and you will see "it works". The "webserveripaddres" is the ip address of your setup/server machine.
Controlling Lighttpd
Start lighttpd:
rc-service lighttpd start
You will get feedback about the status.
* Caching service dependencies [ ok ] * Starting lighttpd... [ ok ]
Stop lighttpd:
rc-service lighttpd stop
Restart lighttpd: After changing the configuration file, lighttpd needs to be restarted.
rc-service lighttpd restart
Proper Runlevel: By default no services are added to start process, sysadmin must know what we want and what will services do, also other main reason are due in dockers there's no runlevels per se and Alpine linux are mostly used in dockers containers. You must added the service only to the default runlevel, not to boot, because need networking activated
rc-update add lighttpd default
Lighttpd Configuration
If you just want to serve simple HTML pages, lighttpd can be used out-of-box. No further configuration needed.
lighttpd configuration options
Status page
Taking care of the status web server: those special pages are just minimal info of the running web server, are need to view from outside in a case of emergency, do not take the wrong approach of hide behind a filtered ip or filtered network, you must have access in all time in all the web to see problems.
- Enable the mod_status at the config files
- change path in the config file (optional), we are using security by obfuscation
- restart the service to see changes at the browser
sed -i -r 's#\#.*mod_status.*,.*# "mod_status",#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf sed -i -r 's#.*status.status-url.*=.*#status.status-url = "/stats/server-status"#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf sed -i -r 's#.*status.config-url.*=.*#status.config-url = "/stats/server-config"#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf rc-service lighttpd restart
CGI bin directory support
By default packages assign a directory under localhost main domain, other linux uses a global cgi directory and aliasing.. the most professional way, but think about it, this per domain configuration allows isolation:
- enable the mod_alias at the config file, due need of a specific path for cgi files into security
- create the directory
- enable the config cgi file
- restart the service to see changes at the browser
mkdir -p /var/www/localhost/cgi-bin sed -i -r 's#\#.*mod_alias.*,.*# "mod_alias",#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf sed -i -r 's#.*include "mod_cgi.conf".*# include "mod_cgi.conf"#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf rc-service lighttpd restart
After that, all the files under the /var/www/localhost/cgi-bin
directory will be accessed under http://localhost/cgi-bin/ path
.cgi and .pl scripts are run using /usr/bin/perl. Review and modify mod_cgi.conf others are needed. Then restart lighttpd to pick up the changes.
Make special errors (404 or 500) pages for clients and visitors
These pages will be shown to visitors when a page or path is not present on the server, or when an internal error happens. These replace the default, minimal error pages and can be a nice message or "away from here" message:
- create the directory for put the html files to show when those errors occur
- create the simple files for each message in the directory
- set the proper in the configuration file
- restart the service to see the changes at the browser (just request a non existing page and you will see it)
mkdir -p /var/www/localhost/errors cat > /var/www/localhost/errors/status-404.html << EOF <h1>The page that you requested are not yet here anymore, sorry was moved or updated, search or visit another one</h1> EOF cat > /var/www/localhost/errors/status-500.html << EOF <h1>Please wait a moment, there's something happens and we are give support maintenance right now to resolve</h1> EOF cp /var/www/localhost/errors/status-404.html /var/www/localhost/errors/status-403.html cp /var/www/localhost/errors/status-500.html /var/www/localhost/errors/status-501.html cp /var/www/localhost/errors/status-500.html /var/www/localhost/errors/status-503.html sed -i -r 's#.*server.errorfile-prefix.*#server.errorfile-prefix = var.basedir + "/errors/status-"#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf rc-service lighttpd restart
Userdir public_html support
Lighttpd SSL support
Create TLS configuration for lighttpd. Best way to do that is by external include files. Debian counterpart has a good mechanism that enables configuration files. We will add SSL support in a similar way.
SSL : making self signed certificate
We need to created a self-signed certificate if we do not already have one:
- install openssl
- create the self signed certificate
- set proper permissions
- create a SSL module configuration file for lighttpd
- activate the openssl module missing from config file
- activate the mod_redirect in case of global http to https redirections
- restart the service to see changes
apk add openssl mkdir -p /etc/ssl/certs/ openssl req -x509 -days 1460 -nodes -newkey rsa:4096 \ -subj "/C=VE/ST=Bolivar/L=Upata/O=VenenuX/OU=Systemas:hozYmartillo/CN=$(hostname -d)" \ -keyout /etc/ssl/certs/$(hostname -d).pem -out /etc/ssl/certs/$(hostname -d).pem chmod 640 /etc/ssl/certs/$(hostname -d).pem cat > /etc/lighttpd/mod_ssl.conf << EOF server.modules += ("mod_openssl") \$SERVER["socket"] == "0.0.0.0:443" { ssl.engine = "enable" ssl.pemfile = "/etc/ssl/certs/$(hostname -d).pem" } \$HTTP["scheme"] == "http" { url.redirect = ("" => "https://\${url.authority}\${url.path}\${qsa}") url.redirect-code = 308 } EOF sed -i -r 's#\#.*mod_redirect.*,.*# "mod_redirect",#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf checkssl="";checkssl=$(grep 'include "mod_ssl.conf' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf);[[ "$checkssl" != "" ]] && echo listo || sed -i -r 's#.*include "mime-types.conf".*#include "mime-types.conf"\ninclude "mod_ssl.conf"#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf rc-service lighttpd restart
For deploy usage of Lets Encrypt without chain-tools (just add water) read HowToSimpleSSL.
Lighttpd advanced
Lighttpd has pretty good default settings, but a few might be tweaked if we need to respond to higher server loads.
Lighttpd tunning for aggressive load
More connections, More File Descriptors
This must be used with caution. Everything is a file to a UNIX operating system. Well, every time a visitor accesses a page, lighttpd uses three file descriptors: An IP socket to the client, a FastCGI process socket, and a filehandle for the document accessed. Lighttpd stops accepting new connections when 90% of the available sockets are in use, restarting again when usage has fallen to 80%. With the default setting of 1024 file descriptors, lighttpd can handle a maximum of 307 connections. If this number are exceded file descriptor must be increrased then. This are a delicate tune due must be check your default with cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
and make sure it’s over 10,000:
checkset="";checkset=$(grep 'max-fds' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf);[[ "$checkset" != "" ]] && echo listo || sed -i -r 's#server settings.*#server settings\nserver.max-fds = 2048\n#g' /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf rc-service lighttpd restart
HTTP Keep-Alive for aggressive load
One reason that file descriptors get used up so quickly is HTTP keep-alive. To improve performance, modern web servers keep client connections alive to handle multiple requests instead of building up and tearing down connections for each item in a page. Keep-alive is tremendously beneficial to performance, but tends to keep unnecessary connections alive, too. lighttpd allows 1000 keep-alive requests per connection, allows idle sessions to remain alive for 5 seconds, and gives reads and writes 1 minute and 6 minutes to complete, respectively.
- Maximum number of request within a keep-alive session before the server terminates the connection, default = 1000 (
server.max-keep-alive-requests
) - Maximum number of seconds until an idling keep-alive connection is dropped, default = 5 (
server.max-keep-alive-idle
) - Maximum number of seconds until a waiting, non keep-alive read times out and closes the connection, default = 60 (
server.max-read-idle
) - Maximum number of seconds until a waiting write call times out and closes the connection, default = 360 (
server.max-write-idle
)
Although lighttpd has pretty aggressive defaults (especially compared to Apache), a period of heavy traffic and a few slow clients could see many unused connections sticking around. The server.max-keep-alive-idle setting default of 5 seconds can be reduced to as low as 2, if you assume your clients are reasonably quick about requesting data, but a value of 3 or 4 is probably realistic. You may want to increase the server.max-keep-alive-requests value from the default of 1000, but you probably don’t need to. The server.max-read-idle and server.max-write-idle settings are tempting targets, but these situations are usually fairly rare so let’s not monkey with them.
Lighttpd_Advanced_security
See at Lighttpd_Advanced_security wiki page.
Lighttpd and PHP with fpm
In production web, LAMP means Linux + Apache + Mysql + Php installed and integrated, but today the "A" of apache are more used as Nginx or Lighttpd, and the "M" of MySQL are more used as Mariadb, the LAMP focused documents are:
- LAMP deploy of the Web Server with PHP, user html_dir and MariaDB: Production LAMP system: Lighttpd + PHP + MySQL