Lighttpd is an easy, fast, and flexible web-server that runs on low-resources (CPU/RAM) while running on a small server. In this tutorial, I will show how to configure lighttpd with PHP to work on multiple sub-domains by using virtual hosts.
These steps were tested on Ubuntu server.
Install software
Update the server to the latest packages/updates.
apt-get update
Install lighttpd and PHP.
sudo apt-get install lighttpd php5-cgi
Enable the fastcgi module and fastcgi PHP support.
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi-php
Restart your lighttpd service to apply the fastcgi changes.
sudo service lighttpd force-reload
Configure your website
On your server, edit the /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf file. Some admins prefer uploading a configuration file over FTP instead of SSH editing.
vi /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
Setup the document root
By default, the document root is /var/www. You may prefer to host your sites out of a different folder, such as /var/websites.
#change
server.document-root = "/var/www"
#to
server.document-root = "/var/websites/root"
Note that lighttpd disables the directory listing by default.
Add virtual hosts
Add the following to lighttpd.conf to host a domain or subdomain.
$HTTP["host"] =~ "^mydomain\.com$" {
server.document-root = "/var/websites/domain"
}
#or
$HTTP["host"] =~ "^sub\.mydomain\.com$" {
server.document-root = "/var/websites/domain/sub"
}
Bare in mind that the $HTTP line contains a regular expression between quotation marks.
If you would like to disable directory listings for virtual hosts, use the following example.
$HTTP["host"] =~ "^sub\.mydomain\.com$" {
server.document-root = "/var/websites/domain/sub"
dir-listing.activate = "disable"
}
Save and restart
Once you have finished adding virtual hosts, save the lighttpd.conf file and restart the lighttpd service.
service lighttpd restart
At this point, lighttpd is serving your PHP pages. Enjoy!