lighttpd
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| Developed by | Jan Kneschke |
|---|---|
| Initial release | March 2003 |
| Stable release | 1.4.22 [+/−] |
| Preview release | 1.5.0 [+/−] |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Available in | English |
| Type | Web server |
| License | BSD |
| Website | Official site |
lighttpd (pronounced "lighty") is a web server designed to be secure, fast, standards-compliant, and flexible while being optimized for speed-critical environments. It was originally written by the German programmer Jan Kneschke (who also works for MySQL) as a proof-of-concept of the c10k problem (how to handle 10000 connections in parallel on one server),[1] but now has substantial worldwide popularity.[2]
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[edit] Premise
Its low memory footprint (compared to other web servers), light CPU load and its speed goals make lighttpd suitable for servers that are suffering load problems, or for serving static media separately from dynamic content. lighttpd is free software/open source, and is distributed under the BSD license. lighttpd runs on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems and Microsoft Windows (under Cygwin). On Windows it can be controlled with the program Lighty Tray which integrates into the system tray.[3]
[edit] Features
- Load-balancing FastCGI, SCGI and HTTP proxy support
chrootsupportselect()-/poll()-/epoll()based web server- Support for more efficient event notification schemes like
kqueueandepoll - Conditional rewrites (mod_rewrite)
- SSL and TLS support, via OpenSSL.
- Authentication against an LDAP server
- RRDtool statistics
- Rule-based downloading with possibility of a script handling only authentication
- Server Side Includes support
- Flexible virtual hosting
- Modules support
- Cache Meta Language (currently being replaced by mod_magnet) using the Lua programming language
- Minimal WebDAV support
- Servlet (AJP) support (in versions 1.5.x and up)
- HTTP compression using mod_compress and the newer mod_deflate (1.5.x)
- Light-weight (less than 1 MB)
- Single-process design with only several threads. No processes or threads started per connection.
[edit] Application support
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. As a particularly popular language, PHP performance has received special attention. Lighttpd's FastCGI can be configured to support PHP with opcode caches (like APC) properly and efficiently. Additionally, it has received attention from its popularity within the Python, Perl, Ruby and Lua communities. It is a popular web server for the Catalyst and Ruby on Rails web frameworks. Lighttpd does not support ISAPI.
[edit] Usage
Lighttpd is used by some of the biggest websites, including sites such as meebo. Wikimedia can run on Lighttpd Web Server [4][5][6][7] as does SourceForge.[7][8] Three of the most famous torrent listing websites, The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt, which have more than 1,000 hits per second, also use Lighttpd.[9] Lighttpd currently holds fifth place on the Netcraft "Web Server Survey" (November 2008).[10]
[edit] References
- ^ "lighttpd: Story". lighttpd.net. http://www.lighttpd.net/story. Retrieved on 22 December 2008.
- ^ "Powered By lighttpd". Lighttpd wiki. http://trac.lighttpd.net/trac/wiki/PoweredByLighttpd. Retrieved on 22 December 2008.
- ^ Lighty Tray for lighttpd (Windows version)
- ^ Brion Vibber (2008-08-26). "Apache mod_php in wikipedia". Wikimedia wikitech-l mailing list. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-August/039208.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-27.
- ^ Tim Starling (2008-08-27). "Apache mod_php in wikipedia". Wikimedia wikitech-l mailing list. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-August/039211.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-27.
- ^ Domas Mitzuas (2008-08-27). "Apache mod_php in wikipedia". Wikimedia wikitech-l mailing list. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-August/039212.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-27.
- ^ a b "Powered by Lighttpd". The official site. 2007-04-04. http://www.lighttpd.net/2007/4/4/powered-by-lighttpd. Retrieved on 2008-12-22. "lighttpd is used by many well-known sites. The typical scenario is using lighttpd as off-load server to push out static content and leave to complex work to another server."
- ^ "Sourceforge site on Lighttpd". almostserio.us. http://www.almostserio.us/articles/2006/10/04/sourceforge-site-on-lighttpd. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
- ^ "Fly Light With Lighttpd Web Server". ServerWatch. http://www.serverwatch.com/stypes/servers/article.php/17191_3678346. Retrieved on 2008-02-12.
- ^ "Web Server Surveys". Netcraft. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html. Retrieved on 2008-12-22.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Project Web site
- Freshmeat entry
- #lighttpd on freenode
- Lighty2Go Portable LiMP Project
- Complete guide to setup your server with Lighttpd, PHP5, MySQL, e-mail, firewall etc.
- Older Lighttpd for Windows builds
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