lighttpd on RPi (with SSL)

[Spike]

Back in 2015 I built a Pi-based http server for a non-internet connected project using piCore and lighttpd.

I now need to update it to support SSL (https).  I don't really mind whether I go to a new version of piCore, but on balance I might as well do so while I'm making changes.

I have two problems:

1. lighttpd no longer seems to be in the extensions repository.  Is there a reason for this?

2. If I install lighttpd from an 11 year old repository, it seems to work, but as far as I can tell, that version (of lighttpd) doesn't support SSL.

Any thoughts as to where to go from here?  I guess I could switch to Apache, but I preferred the idea of a lighter-weight http server.

[patrikg]

How about nginx ?

[mjmouse]

I do have this build script sitting around. It expects to be run from the root of an extracted tarball of lighttpd. You will probably want to add extra flags to the ./configure call if you are needing a different ssl library. Also, since this was for tinycore x86_64, some of the libraries may be named differently.

(My main use for this was under x86_64, the lighttpd in the repos didn't have magnet support. I haven't tested the ssl support, since I already have it behind nginx)

Code: [Select]

tce-load -i compiletc autoconf automake libtool m4 pcre pcre-dev pkg-config libtool-dev
tce-load -i pcre21042-dev
tce-load -i lua-5.4-dev openssl-dev zstd-dev squashfs-tools sqlite3-dev libxml2-dev

if ! [ -e configure ]; then
libtoolize
./autogen.sh
fi

./configure --with-lua --with-zlib --with-zstd --with-bzip2 --with-openssl  --with-sqlite --with-webdav-props --with-webdav-locks --libdir=/usr/local/lib/lighttpd

make -j 4

make DESTDIR=/home/tc/lighttpd/lighttpd-m install
cd /home/tc/lighttpd

mksquashfs lighttpd-m lighttpd-m.tcz

cat <<EOF >lighttpd-m.tcz.dep
openssl.tcz
pcre21042.tcz
lua-5.4-lib.tcz
sqlite3.tcz
libxml2.tcz
EOF


[Spike]

Thanks, both.  I'll try building lighttpd using mjmouse's script.  If I don't get on well with that (haven't compiled *anything* on *nix in the last 30 years, never mind a tcx  ) I'll switch to nginx.  Though everything I read says how well suited lighttpd is for embedded systems and RPi, so let's hope that works out.

[Rich]

Hi Spike

... mind a tcx  ...

Building a  .tcz  file is easy.

Install squashfs-tools.tcz:

Code: [Select]

tce-load -wi squashfs-tools
Create the directory tree that will contain the programs files:

Code: [Select]

mkdir -p pkg/usr/local/sbin
mkdir -p pkg/usr/local/lib
 ... etc ...
Copy (or move) the compiled files (or directories) to their destination:

Code: [Select]

cp -a Path/To/lighttpd pkg/usr/local/sbin
 ... etc ...
Once all of the required files have been copied, create the  .tcz  file:

Code: [Select]

mksquashfs pkg lighttpd.tcz -noappend

[Spike]

So building a tcz turned out to be not scary at all

I managed to build lighttpd from the latest sources, and produced .tcz, .tcz.dep etc.  But when I try to load that onto a clean piCore 16.0, it says it's installed, but I'm not seeing a config file where I'd expect, i.e. /usr/local/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf.

I'll continue poking around to see if I can see what I'm missing, but if anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.

[Rich]

Hi Spike

... but I'm not seeing a config file where I'd expect, i.e. /usr/local/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf. ...

When you executed this step:

... Create the directory tree that will contain the programs files:

Code: [Select]

mkdir -p pkg/usr/local/sbin
mkdir -p pkg/usr/local/lib
 ... etc ... ...

Did you also do this:

Code: [Select]

mkdir -p pkg/usr/local/etc/lighttpdand copy a  lighttpd.conf  to that directory?

If you run:

Code: [Select]

unsquashfs -ll lighttpd.tczdoes the listing it prints out include  usr/local/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf ?

[mjmouse]

It doesn't create a sample lighttpd.conf by default. I think that is more often a distro-provided thing.

It should be fine to just run

Code: [Select]

sudo lighttpd -D -f /path/to/a/new/lighttpd.conf once you make a new lighttpd.conf. And then remove -D once you are happy for it to run in the background.

Example (trimmed) contents of my config for my site: (it runs under an added www-data user)

Code: [Select]

server.document-root = "/home/www-data/repo/public_html/"
server.port = 80
server.username = "www-data"
server.groupname = "www-data"
static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".cgi", ".lua" )
index-file.names = ( "index.html", "index.lua" )
mimetype.assign = (
   ".css"  => "text/css; charset=utf-8",
   ".html" => "text/html; charset=utf-8",
   ".js"   => "text/javascript; charset=utf-8",
   ".lua"  => "application/lua; charset=utf-8",
   ".png"  => "image/png",
   ".txt"  => "text/plain",
   ".webmanifest" => "application/manifest+json",
)
server.modules += ( "mod_cgi", "mod_status", "mod_access", "mod_accesslog", "mod_expire", "mod_redirect", "mod_setenv", "mod_magnet" )
magnet.attract-physical-path-to = ( "/home/www-data/repo/magnet.lua" )
magnet.attract-response-start-to = ( "/home/www-data/repo/magnet-response.lua" )
server.errorlog = "/tmp/lighttpd-error.log"
server.breakagelog = "/tmp/lighttpd-breakage.log"
accesslog.filename = "/tmp/lighttpd-access.log"

include_shell "echo var.lua = '\"'$(which lua)'\"'"
cgi.assign = ( ".lua" => var.lua )
cgi.execute-x-only = "enable"
cgi.limits = (
   "write-timeout" => 60,
   "read-timeout" => 180,
)
setenv.add-environment = (
   "REALDB_ROOT" => "/home/www-data/databases",
)
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/favicon.ico$" {
   url.redirect = (
      "^/favicon.ico$" => "/favicon.png"
   )
   url.redirect-code = 307
}
# various basically-static data
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/scripts/" {
   expire.url = ( "" => "access plus 30 days" )
}
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/(main|clock)\.[0-9]+\.css$" {
   expire.url = ( "" => "access plus 30 days" )
}
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/favicon\.(png|ico)$" {
   expire.url = ( "" => "access plus 30 days" )
}