Lighttpd是一個德國人領導的開源軟體，其根本的目的是提供一個專門針對高效能網站，安全、快速、相容性好並且靈活的web server環境。具有非常低的記憶體開銷，cpu佔用率低，效能好，以及豐富的模組等特點。
lighttpd 是眾多OpenSource輕量級的web server中較為優秀的一個。支援FastCGI, CGI, Auth, 輸出壓縮(output compress), URL重寫, Alias等重要功能，而Apache之所以流行，很大程度也是因為功能豐富，在lighttpd上很多功能都有相應的實現了，這點對於apache的使用者是非常重要的，因為遷移到lighttpd就必須面對這些問題。
實用起來lighttpd確實非常不錯，apache主要的問題是密集併發下，不斷的fork()和切換，以及較高（相對於 lighttpd而言）的記憶體佔用，使系統的資源幾盡枯竭。而lighttpd採用了Multiplex技術，程式碼經過優化，體積非常小，資源佔用很低，而且反應速度相當快。
利用apache的rewrite技術，將繁重的cgi/fastcgi任務交給lighttpd來完成，充分利用兩者的優點，現在那臺伺服器的負載下降了一個數量級，而且反應速度也提高了一個甚至是2個數量級！
lighttpd 適合靜態資源類的服務，比如圖片、資原始檔、靜態HTML等等的應用，效能應該比較好，同時也適合簡單的CGI應用的場合。
官方地址：

[email protected]:~$ sudo apt-get install lighttpd

[sudo] password for linux:

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree      

Reading state information... Done

The following extra packages will be installed:

  gamin libgamin0 libterm-readkey-perl libterm-readline-perl-perl spawn-fcgi

Suggested packages:

  rrdtool apache2-utils

The following NEW packages will be installed:

  gamin libgamin0 libterm-readkey-perl libterm-readline-perl-perl lighttpd spawn-fcgi

0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 623 not upgraded.

Need to get 434 kB of archives.

After this operation, 1,510 kB of additional disk space will be used.

Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y

Get:1 http://cn.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/universe libgamin0 i386 0.1.10-4ubuntu0.1 [18.6 kB]

Get:2 http://cn.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/universe gamin i386 0.1.10-4ubuntu0.1 [47.0 kB]

Get:3 http://cn.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main libterm-readkey-perl i386 2.30-4build3 [28.4 kB]

Get:4 http://cn.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe libterm-readline-perl-perl all 1.0303-1 [51.9 kB]

Get:5 http://cn.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe lighttpd i386 1.4.28-2ubuntu4 [275 kB]

Get:6 http://cn.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe spawn-fcgi i386 1.6.3-1 [13.4 kB]

Fetched 434 kB in 2s (198 kB/s) 

Selecting previously unselected package libgamin0.

(Reading database ... 148284 files and directories currently installed.)

Unpacking libgamin0 (from .../libgamin0_0.1.10-4ubuntu0.1_i386.deb) ...

Selecting previously unselected package gamin.

Unpacking gamin (from .../gamin_0.1.10-4ubuntu0.1_i386.deb) ...

Selecting previously unselected package libterm-readkey-perl.

Unpacking libterm-readkey-perl (from .../libterm-readkey-perl_2.30-4build3_i386.deb) ...

Selecting previously unselected package libterm-readline-perl-perl.

Unpacking libterm-readline-perl-perl (from .../libterm-readline-perl-perl_1.0303-1_all.deb) ...

Selecting previously unselected package lighttpd.

Unpacking lighttpd (from .../lighttpd_1.4.28-2ubuntu4_i386.deb) ...

Selecting previously unselected package spawn-fcgi.

Unpacking spawn-fcgi (from .../spawn-fcgi_1.6.3-1_i386.deb) ...

Processing triggers for man-db ...

Processing triggers for ufw ...

Processing triggers for ureadahead ...

ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot

Setting up libterm-readkey-perl (2.30-4build3) ...

Setting up libterm-readline-perl-perl (1.0303-1) ...

Setting up spawn-fcgi (1.6.3-1) ...

update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/spawn-fcgi.standalone to provide /usr/bin/spawn-fcgi (spawn-fcgi) in auto mode.

update-alternatives: warning: not replacing /usr/share/man/man1/spawn-fcgi.1.gz with a link.

Setting up gamin (0.1.10-4ubuntu0.1) ...

Setting up libgamin0 (0.1.10-4ubuntu0.1) ...

Setting up lighttpd (1.4.28-2ubuntu4) ...

 * Starting web server lighttpd                                                                                  [ OK ]

Processing triggers for libc-bin ...

ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

[email protected]:~$ ps -aux|grep light*

Warning: bad ps syntax, perhaps a bogus '-'? See http://procps.sf.net/faq.html

root       933  0.0  0.3  35732  3728 ?        Ssl  16:54   0:00 lightdm

root       948  1.6  5.2 102672 53364 tty7     Rsl+ 16:54   0:15 /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch -background none

root      1654  0.0  0.3  17852  3776 ?        Sl   16:54   0:00 lightdm --session-child 12 19

www-data  4613  0.0  0.0   5460   880 ?        S    17:10   0:00 /usr/sbin/lighttpd -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

linux     4664  0.0  0.0   4372   832 pts/1    S+   17:10   0:00 grep --color=auto light*

[email protected]:~$ lighttpd -V

lighttpd/1.4.28 (ssl) - a light and fast webserver

Build-Date: Dec 20 2011 14:33:34

Event Handlers:

         + select (generic)

         + poll (Unix)

         - rt-signals (Linux 2.4+)

         + epoll (Linux 2.6)

         - /dev/poll (Solaris)

         - kqueue (FreeBSD)

         - libev (generic)

Network handler:

         + sendfile

Features:

         + IPv6 support

         + zlib support

         + bzip2 support

         + crypt support

         + SSL Support

         + PCRE support

         + mySQL support

         + LDAP support

         + memcached support

         + FAM support

         + LUA support

         + xml support

         + SQLite support

         + GDBM support

[email protected]:~$ which lighttpd

/usr/sbin/lighttpd

web伺服器的根目錄是在 /var/www/

[email protected]:~$ cat /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

server.modules = (

         "mod_access",

         "mod_alias",

         "mod_compress",

        "mod_redirect",

#       "mod_rewrite",

)

server.document-root        = "/var/www"

server.upload-dirs          = ( "/var/cache/lighttpd/uploads" )

server.errorlog             = "/var/log/lighttpd/error.log"

server.pid-file             = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid"

server.username             = "www-data"

server.groupname            = "www-data"

index-file.names            = ( "index.php", "index.html",

                                "index.htm", "default.htm",

                               " index.lighttpd.html" )

url.access-deny             = ( "~", ".inc" )

static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" )

## Use ipv6 if available

#include_shell "/usr/share/lighttpd/use-ipv6.pl"

dir-listing.encoding        = "utf-8"

server.dir-listing          = "enable"

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

compress.filetype           = ( "application/x-javascript", "text/css", "text/html", "text/plain" )

include_shell "/usr/share/lighttpd/create-mime.assign.pl"

include_shell "/usr/share/lighttpd/include-conf-enabled.pl"

Lighttpd預設頁面

寫lighttpd的配置檔案lighttpd.conf。

（1）使用語句 server.modules = ("mod_cgi")加入 cgi 模組；

（2）使用語句 cgi.assign = (".cgi" => "") 設定 cgi模組的副檔名和直譯器。就本語句而言，表示cgi模組的副檔名是“.cgi”且該 cgi模組不需要特別的直譯器來執行

lighttpd configuration

Change the server.modules list inside /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf in:

server.modules              = (

            "mod_access",

"mod_cgi",

            "mod_alias",

            "mod_accesslog",

            "mod_compress",

)

and add these lines:

$HTTP["url"] =~ "/cgi-bin/" {

        cgi.assign = ( "" => "" )

}

cgi.assign      = (

        ".cgi"  => ""

)

Restart lighttpd typing:

debarm:~# /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Hello world example

Save this "Hello world !" source code example in/var/www/cgi-bin(create this directory if it not exists).

#include"stdio.h"

int main(void){

  printf("Content-Type: text/plain\n\n");

  printf("Hello world !\n");

return0;

}

Compile it typing:

debarm:~# gcc hello.c -o hello.cgi

[email protected]:/var/www/cgi-bin$ ./hello.cgi 

Content-Type: text/plain

Hello world

Final test

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