05
Mar/10

lighttpd: tips, url.redirect, url.rewrite, mod_proxy, etc...

[05 Mar 10 at 07:32:55 - 4 comment(s)]

If you are using lighttpd or you intend to use it then you should check this post. You'll find quite a few interesting things about url-redirect and url-rewrite using respectively mod_redirect and mod_rewrite. I have added some other tips as well such as enabling compression, getting drupal to work with lighttpd or how to use mod_proxy (useful if you run a java webapp for example).

url-redirect, url-rewrite and proxy

I am not going to do a long speech here, I'll show some examples so that you can understand and use it if it answers your need.

Redirect all the www. requests to .

$HTTP["host"] =~ "^www\.(.*)$" {
url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://%1" )
}

Redirect requests from main domain to subdomain (http://host.com -> http://sub.host.com)

$HTTP["host"] == "host.com" {
url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://sub.host.com/$1" )
}

Proxy to a web container such as tomcat running on port 8080 but not request to statics.domain.com

$HTTP["host"] != "statics.host.com" {
  $HTTP["host"] =~ "host.com$" {
    url.rewrite-once = (
          "^(.*)" => "/myapp/web$1"
    )
    proxy.server = (
      "" => (
        "host" => (
          "host" => "127.0.0.1",
          "port" => 8080
        )
      )
    )
  }
}

Enabling compression

Here are the lines you need to add to enable compression in lighttpd.

You need to load mod_compress

server.modules = (
"...",
"mod_compress"
)

Then you add the following

compress.cache-dir = "/tmp/lighttpd/"

compress.filetype = ("text/plain","text/css","text/xml","text/javascript")

I don't think these lines need any explanation.

You need to create the folder /tmp/lighttpd/ (needs to be rw by the user running lighttpd obviously)

mkdir /tmp/lighttpd/

Having a site running with drupal on lighttpd

I had to host a website built with drupal not long time ago. Here is how to proceed:

$HTTP["host"] == "host.com" {
  server.document-root = "/path/to/drupal/site/"
  dir-listing.activate = "disable"
  magnet.attract-physical-path-to = ("/etc/lighttpd/drupal.lua")
}

You've noticed the use of a drupal.lua so here is the file: download drupal.lua. That's it, you don't need to do anything more than that.

Zend website on lighttpd

Other special case scenario. What you need:

$HTTP["host"] == "jmscs.org" {
  server.document-root = "/path/to/zend/site/"
  dir-listing.activate = "disable"

  url.rewrite-once = (".*\.(js|ico|gif|jpg|png|css)$" => "$0", "" => "/index.php")
}

Conclusion

We've in few lines seen how to use mod_rewrite with url.rewrite, mod_redirect with url.redirect, mod_compress, mod_proxy if you host a web container such as tomcat as well as how to host a drupal or a zend website with lighttpd. Hope you'll find some of this useful.

Add new comment

4 Comment(s)

Miguel - 01 Jul 2011 at 15:50:49

I think I got it with

url.redirect = (
"^/forum/(.*)$" => "http://forum.example.org/$1"
)

Miguel - 01 Jul 2011 at 15:05:49

Hello, sorry I newbie with lighttpd and cant 'import' a redirection of apache, following the tutos.
I want all urls from example.com/forum redirected to the subdomain forum.example.com
Can you post the code?

inebium - 07 Dec 2010 at 13:26:00

You just need to have a host for it like the following:
$HTTP["host"] == "www.host.com" {
server.document-root = "/path/to/zend/site/"
...
}

Or to redirect all the . to www, this should do:
$HTTP["host"] =~ "^\.(.*)$" {
url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "http://www.%1" )
}

julian - 07 Dec 2010 at 13:18:39

Hi there, do you know how to add [www] to a subdomain. I can access to it by using subdomain.domain.tld but no with www.subdomain.domain.tld. It seems that www is already a subdomain so i guess it can be accomplished by rewrite, any ideas will be appreciated :)

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