Switching from Apache HTTP Server to Lighttpd - Installing Lighttpd
For our main web project we struggle to serve the pages as fast as we want and as people aspect. Server load is too high most of the time. We did many different kinds of optimization. Starting with rewriting part of the code, squeezing the database, compiling the software we need instead of installing precompiled packages, using all kind of cache strategies (database, template, bytecode), buying servers with more powerful cpus (dual core instead of single core, 64bit instead of 32 bit), stocking up on ram (up to 8 GB RAM now) and now exchanging certain layers of software.
Setting up my first lighttpd server was easy. Configure runs through as wanted with just a few options:
LDFLAGS=”-L/usr/lib64″ ./configure –prefix=/usr/local/lighttpd-1.4.18 –with-pcre –with-bzip2 –with-rewrite –with-redirect –with-zlib –disable-ipv6
I took the few configurations options I needed from the official docs. Everything works as aspected and is pretty straight forward. You can check the syntax with the -t switch:
sbin/lighttpd -f lighttpd.config -t