.. blogpost::
    :title: lighttpd - serve static content - setup
    :keywords: debian, FTP
    :date: 2019-09-19
    :categories: installation

    I had to stop relying on friend to hold the
    content of my website. I wrote earlier a blog on how to
    setup a SFTP server. Let's now see how to set up
    a http server with `lighttpd <https://www.lighttpd.net/>`_.
    I usually avoid using *python* for this even though it is
    sometimes more simple because it is easier to detect
    python processes hanging on. On debian:

    ::

        apt-get install lighttpd

    The configuration is located here:
    ``/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf``.
    We let the firewall open port 80:
    ``sudo ufw allow 80``. Let's add a user
    for the server:

    ::

        useradd -m httpuser
        passwd httpuser
        chmod +r -R /home/ftpuser/ftp/web

    ::

        server.modules = (
                "mod_access",
                "mod_alias",
                "mod_compress",
                "mod_redirect",
                "mod_accesslog",
        )

        server.document-root        = "/home/ftpuser/ftp/web"
        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
        server.error-handler-404    = "/index404.html"
        accesslog.filename          = "/var/log/lighttpd/access.log"

        index-file.names            = ( "index.php", "index.html", "index.lighttpd.html" )
        url.access-deny             = ( "~", ".inc" )
        static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" )

        compress.cache-dir          = "/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/"
        compress.filetype           = ( "application/javascript", "text/css", "text/html", "text/plain" )

        # default listening port for IPv6 falls back to the IPv4 port
        include_shell "/usr/share/lighttpd/use-ipv6.pl " + server.port
        include_shell "/usr/share/lighttpd/create-mime.assign.pl"
        include_shell "/usr/share/lighttpd/include-conf-enabled.pl"

    Let's activate the service:

    ::

        systemctl start lighttpd.service

    Last step, enable rotating logs. The file
    ``/etc/logrotate.d/lighttpd`` should look like
    this:

    ::

        {
                daily
                missingok
                copytruncate
                rotate 365000
                compress
            delaycompress
                dateformat -%Y-%m-%d
                dateext
                notifempty
                sharedscripts
                postrotate
                     if [ -x /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d ]; then \
                        invoke-rc.d lighttpd reopen-logs > /dev/null 2>&1; \
                     else \
                        /etc/init.d/lighttpd reopen-logs > /dev/null 2>&1; \
                     fi; \
                endscript
        }

    And restart the service.

    ::

        systemctl restart lighttpd.service

    The folder ``ls /var/log/lighttpd/``
    should contain the logs.
    And to enable *https*:
    `Setting up a simple SSL configuration
    <https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/HowToSimpleSSL>`_.