Setting lightweight web server on Raspberry Pi - LIGHTTPD

Lighttpd is an open-source web server optimized for speed-critical, high-performance environments while maintaining standards-compliant, secure and flexible.

It has a very low memory footprint compared to other web servers and takes care of CPU-load. Running a light webserver on Linux with Lighttpd and Raspberry Pi:

A. General

Overview and comparison of Memory Usage and Connection Requests.

Memory Usage

From the above image, it is clearly seen that Lighttpd uses less memory compared to others which is quite good for Raspberry Pi.

Connection Request

Also, the requests per second for Lighttpd is suitable for applications running on Raspberry Pi.

B. Setting up

1. Installing lighttpd

To install the Lighttpd web server type the following commands in terminal

sudo apt-get install lighttpd

This will install the web server and other required dependencies.

2. Enabling CGI

CGI and FastCGI are not necessary though.

sudo lighttpd-enable-mod cgi

3. Enabling FastCGI

sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi

C. Configuring Server

You need to change the default location of HTML in web-directory. Type the following command in terminal

 sudo nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

you will see

server.document-root        = "/var/www/html"
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"
server.port                 = 80

Change

server.document-root = “/var/www/html”

to

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

D. Restarting Server

You can restart the server with any two commands below

• Direct Reload

 sudo service lighttpd force-reload

OR

• Stop-Start Reload

sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd stop

sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd start

E. Set permissions on the web directory

Change the permissions on the www directory to allow a user to update the web pages without needing to be root.

Change the directory owner and group

 sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/www

To allow the group to write to the directory type the following in terminal

 sudo chmod 775 /var/www

To add the pi user to the www-data group

 sudo usermod -a -G www-data pi

It is necessary to logout current user and login again to make the group permissions. It is better to restart the Raspberry Pi to set the permissions.

E. Testing the server

Once the setup is complete you can access the web page by typing the IP address of the Raspberry Pi in a web browser.

You have successfully installed and configured Lighttpd web server on Raspberry Pi!