lighttpd, php5, eAccelerator by RPMs

Install the require RPMs (php, php-mysql, php-eAccelerator). For Fedora, use yum (lighttpd and lighttpd-fastcgi). For CentOS and other distros that do not include lighttpd in their repository, use DAG repository

Find out the path to php-cgi and whether it supports fastcgi (should show cgi-fcgi)

$ php-cgi -v PHP 5.0.4 (cgi-fcgi) (built: Nov 8 2005 08:25:54) Copyright (c) 1997-2004 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.0.4-dev, Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Zend Technologies with eAccelerator v0.9.4, Copyright (c) 2004-2005 eAccelerator, by eAccelerator Configure a light weight lighttpd: # lighttpd configuration file # @author: Son Nguyen # @date: 6/26/2006 server.modules = ("mod_fastcgi") server.document-root = "/home/www/" server.max-keep-alive-requests = 0 server.max-fds = 2048 server.port = 80 server.errorlog = "/var/log/lighttpd/error_log" server.tag = "lighttpd" server.username = "lighttpd" server.groupname = "lighttpd" server.pid-file = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid" #### fastcgi module fastcgi.server = (".php"=>("localhost"=>("socket"=>"/tmp/php-fastcgi.socket","bin-path"=>"/usr/bin/php-cgi"))) # files to check for if .../ is requested index-file.names = ("index.php","index.html","index.htm","default.htm") # which extensions should not be handle via static-file transfer # .php, .pl, .fcgi are most often handled by mod_fastcgi or mod_cgi static-file.exclude-extensions = ( ".php", ".pl", ".fcgi" ) # mimetype mapping mimetype.assign = ( ".rpm" => "application/x-rpm", ".pdf" => "application/pdf", ".sig" => "application/pgp-signature", ".spl" => "application/futuresplash", ".class" => "application/octet-stream", ".ps" => "application/postscript", ".torrent" => "application/x-bittorrent", ".dvi" => "application/x-dvi", ".gz" => "application/x-gzip", ".pac" => "application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig", ".swf" => "application/x-shockwave-flash", ".tar.gz" => "application/x-tgz", ".tgz" => "application/x-tgz", ".tar" => "application/x-tar", ".zip" => "application/zip", ".mp3" => "audio/mpeg", ".m3u" => "audio/x-mpegurl", ".wma" => "audio/x-ms-wma", ".wax" => "audio/x-ms-wax", ".ogg" => "application/ogg", ".wav" => "audio/x-wav", ".gif" => "image/gif", ".jpg" => "image/jpeg", ".jpeg" => "image/jpeg", ".png" => "image/png", ".xbm" => "image/x-xbitmap", ".xpm" => "image/x-xpixmap", ".xwd" => "image/x-xwindowdump", ".css" => "text/css", ".html" => "text/html", ".htm" => "text/html", ".js" => "text/javascript", ".asc" => "text/plain", ".c" => "text/plain", ".cpp" => "text/plain", ".log" => "text/plain", ".conf" => "text/plain", ".text" => "text/plain", ".txt" => "text/plain", ".dtd" => "text/xml", ".xml" => "text/xml", ".mpeg" => "video/mpeg", ".mpg" => "video/mpeg", ".mov" => "video/quicktime", ".qt" => "video/quicktime", ".avi" => "video/x-msvideo", ".asf" => "video/x-ms-asf", ".asx" => "video/x-ms-asf", ".wmv" => "video/x-ms-wmv", ".bz2" => "application/x-bzip", ".tbz" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar", ".tar.bz2" => "application/x-bzip-compressed-tar" ) Might need to switch from httpd to lighttpd

# switch from httpd to lighttpd
service httpd stop
service lighttpd start
chkconfig --list httpd
chkconfig lighttpd on
chkconfig httpd off
chkconfig --list httpd
chkconfig --list lighttpd

Can also run both httpd and lighttpd together on the same server (use two different ports, eg: 80 & 81, don't forget to open the new port in the firewall) for testing/benchmarking or development purposes.

Initial benchmark: a 10-15% improvement on serving dynamic PHP/MySQL pages. Static files are supposed to be much faster. lighttpd is very stable (loadavg is maintained at about 3-4) with higher concurrency levels while Apache might increase loadavg to over 10+

Great kudos to the lighttpd developers for bringing us a fast, light webserver. Fly Light!