Lighttpd Configuration

Fast guide to setting up lighttpd

lighttpd.conf – This is the configuration file for your lighttpd instance.

For one application:

Copy the configuration file into your rails/config directory.

The only specific change you should need is setting the port. Your argon port information can be found here.

To start your new lighttpd instance

./script/server -d lighttpd

To stop your lighttpd instance

Kill all your lighttpd instances and dispatchers:

ps ux | awk '/(lighttpd|dispatch|ruby)/ {print $2}' | xargs kill 

Accessing your server without the port (proxying)

If you have your site at “http://mysite.com” then you’ll need to access “http://mysite.com:8XXX” ( where the XXX is replaced with your port number ). If you would like to access your site without the port number in the URL you’ll need to submit a support ticket and a place a request.

Restarting your lighttpd instance

If you are on our new Helium server, restarting your application is handled by the server as long as your application lives in: /var/www/virtual/domain.com/rails

If you placed your application elsewhere or are on another server, it’s up to you to manage a crontab with a restart script.

For a more complex setup with multiple domains or subdomains running on lighttpd, see Setting up Lighttpd on Planet Argon

May require slight tweaking to get it dialed, but it’s 95% correct.

Problem serving files from lighttpd.

Problem: sending pdf files is timing out half way through with no known reason.

Workaround:

The problem with serving PDFs to Win/IE has something to do with lighty… Don’t know what. The workaround was to use send_data to stream it from Rails.