Debian lighttpd server

From Kurobox Central

Contents 1 Installation in Debian 2 Configuration of lighttpd 2.1 General configuration 2.2 add PHP5 support 2.3 Authentification 3 Restart lighttpd

[edit] Installation in Debian

Switch to debian unstable (needed as lighttpd is not yet available in stable debian)

nano /etc/apt/sources.list
replace stable to unstable in "deb" lines
//deb http://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib
//deb ftp://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib
//deb ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib
//deb-src ftp://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian unstable main contrib
//deb-src ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib

Install Lighttpd + PHP5 + SQLite support

apt-get install lighttpd php5-cgi php5-sqlite

Answer yes to all and ignore the errors (the one about exim is normal as you do not have exim !)

[edit] Configuration of lighttpd

[edit] General configuration

• Default configuration only allow localhost to connect the server, just remove that :

nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
// comment the line
server.bind                = "localhost"

=>

#server.bind                = "localhost"

• If you need to run some applications with root privileges in some of your scripts :

Run lighttpd server with root privileges :

// comment the lines
server.username            = "www-data"
// and
server.groupname           = "www-data"

[edit] add PHP5 support

• You need to edit a config file as it's configured to run php4 :

nano /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/10-fastcgi.conf
// replace
                "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php4-cgi",
// with
                "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi",

• then activate fast-cgi and cgi modules :

cd /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled
ln -s ../conf-available/10-cgi.conf 10-cgi.conf
ln -s ../conf-available/10-fastcgi.conf 10-fastcgi.conf

[edit] Authentification

You may want to protect your server with some users/passwords :

• Edit the authentification's config file :

nano /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/10-auth.conf

and add these lines :

auth.backend = "htpasswd"
auth.backend.htpasswd.userfile = "/var/www/.htpasswd"

auth.require = ("/dir1" =>
                 (
                   "method" => "basic",
                   "realm" => "Kurobox",
                   "require" => "valid-user"
                 ),
               "/dir2" =>
                 (
                   "method" => "basic",
                   "realm" => "Kurobox",
                   "require" => "user=tom|user=john"
                 ),
               )

Adapt auth.require to you needs :

You can set a configuration for any directory you want
"realm" field is a text that will be shown in the authentification window
"require" field allow to specify which users will be alowed to a specific folder. Valid values are :
     valid-user : every declared users will be authorized
     user=user1 : user1 will be authorized
     group=group1 : members of group1 will be authorized
     host=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx : host with specified ip is allowed to connect the folder

   You can specify several users/group/hosts by separating them with "|" :
     "require" => "user=bob|user=dad|group=www-users|host=192.168.1.2"

• then activate auth module :

cd /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled
ln -s ../conf-available/10-auth.conf 10-auth.conf

• Create your user list with passwords :

The file containing all you users/passwords will be /var/www/.htpasswd (unless you changed it in mod-auth's configuration). To create it and add users, you'll need "htpasswd" tool that is a part of Apache utils. To install it :

apt-get install apache2-utils

Then add your users :

htpasswd -c -b /var/www/.htpasswd user password # -c is only for the first user as it creates the file
htpasswd -b /var/www/.htpasswd user2 password2 # to add more users, remove the -c option
...

[edit] Restart lighttpd

Once everything is configured, you can restart lighttpd to apply modifications :

/etc/init.d/lighttpd restart