Lighttpd is a popular event-based web server alternative to Nginx. Lighttpd can be used to serve high traffic sites even on a small VPS.
Here, I will explain how to install Lighttpd with PHP 5 (PHP5-FPM) and MySQL on Ubuntu 14.04.
Step 1: Install Lighttpd
Install Lighttpd with the following commands.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lighttpd
This will start Lighttpd once the install finishes. You can test the status of the server by accessing the IP address of your VPS in a web browser. Upon success, you will see the Lighttp welcome page.
If the page does not load, you can force-restart the service.
sudo service lighttpd start
Step 2: Install PHP 5
Install PHP5 with the following command.
sudo apt-get install php5-cgi php5-mysql
Note that the “php5-mysql” package is needed to use MySQL server with PHP.
Step 3: Enable FastCGI
Enable PHP5 CGI modules in Lighttpd with the following commands.
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi-php
After enabling the modules, you need to restart the Lighttpd service.
sudo service lighttpd force-reload
Step 4: Test PHP integration
Test the PHP integration with Lighttpd. To do this, create a test file inside the /var/www/ folder.
nano /var/www/info.php
Paste the following content into this file.
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
Now, access http://[SERVER_IP]/info.php in your web browser. If the configuration was setup properly, you will see the PHP info page.
Step 5: Install MySQL
Run the following command to install MySQL server. During the installation, you need to give the administrator password for MySQL root.
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
Once the install finishes, install a MySQL database.
mysql_install_db
Additionally, you can use the secure MySQL installation by running the following command.
mysql_secure_installation