Debian 7 with Lighttpd + web2py setup

[Jon M.]

Peaceful greetings Google Group Members and Mr. Di Pierro.

First of all, thanks to all of you, web2py dev team, group members,for giving us the power of deploying with such a complete python web framework. I can imagine the heavy load of work behind from its beginning, to present day.

The thing is, I'm struggling with the setup of lighty with web2py.

  - I want to work only with Lighttpd as if I were working with Rocket, therefore, I want to disable Rocket at web2py startup.
  - The /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf setup, as in many blogs, as in official web2py manual at the lighttpd recipe, does not work for me.
  - When starting web2py at the desired port 80 or 8000, Rocket claims that port, so, it doesn't start.
 
Some doubts with suggestion of being clear:

 > Nowhere says if code needs to be replaced, added or overwritten. Kinda mixed code from many places regarding lighty with web2py.

 > Some URLs are not clear, from a glimpse someone can see URL for Windows paths, others for UNIX.

 > Some authors use /var/www/web2py, while others use /home/www-data/web2py. Which one is the one and why?

 > Is that configuration even possible? I've been working-learning web2py for almost half-year and I just can't get there.

Here's what I have in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

server.modules = (
        "mod_access",
        "mod_alias",
        "mod_compress",
        "mod_redirect",
        "mod_rewrite",
        "mod_fastcgi",
        "mod_accesslog",
        "mod_status",
)
 
server.port                 = 8000
server.bind                 = "127.0.0.1"
server.event-handler        = "poll"  
server.dir-listing          = "disable"
server.upload-dirs          = ("/var/cache/lighttpd/uploads")
server.pid-file             = "/var/run/lighttpd.pid"
server.username             = "www-data"
server.groupname            = "www-data" 
server.error-handler-404    = "/test.fcgi"
server.document-root        = "/home/www-data/web2py"
server.errorlog             = "/tmp/error.log"

fastcgi.server              = (".fcgi" =>
                                        ("fcgihandler" =>
                                                        ("min-procs" => 1,
                                                         "socket"    => "/tmp/fcgi.sock"
                                                        )
                                        )
                              )

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"

#w2p

$HTTP["host"] =~ "(^|\.)example\.com$" {
  server.document-root = "/home/www-data/web2py"
    url.rewrite-once = (
      "^(/.+?/static/.+)$" => "/applications$1",
      "^(/static/.+)$" => "/applications/app$1",
      "^/$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi/app/default/index",
      "(^/app.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi$1",
      "(^/admin.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi$1",
      "(^/examples.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi$1",
      "(^/welcome.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi$1",
      "(^|/.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi/app/default/$1",
    )
}

The fcgihandler.fcgi is the default from the handlers folder under web2py.

 -- I copied the handler under /home/www-data/web2py/handlers/fcgihandler.py to /home/www-data/web2py/, and changed the *.py extension to *.fcgi.
 -- I changed the name of handler as suggested here: http://web2py.googlegroups.com/attach/e96c0ab84d8e474e/tutorial.htm?view=1&part=2
 -- I've already stopped whatever wanted to make use of the port 80. Apache2 mostly.
 -- I run the "sudo -u www-data python fcgihandler.fcgi", as stated in the link above. Prior to run web2py, and prior to restarting lighttpd with the custom configuration. No success.

I appreciate your time taken to read this, and your help.

Have a nice day/night everyone! :D

P.D.: Spanish spoken too. Just in case. [:

[Massimo Di Pierro]

Thanks Jon.

I have not used this in long time (4 years?) and there has not been much talk about lighttpd since nginx. Anyway I think you do this:

1) copy web2py/handlers/
fcgihandler.py to web2py/fcgihandler.py but you should not rename it.

2) you start it with sudo -u www-data python fcgihandler.py and it will open and listen from the /tmp/fcgi.sock socket.

3) The lighttpd should be something like:

server.port = 8000                                                                            

server.bind = '127.0.0.1'                                                                     

server.event-handler = 'freebsd-kqueue'                                                       

server.modules = ('mod_rewrite', 'mod_fastcgi')                                               

server.error-handler-404 = '/test.fcgi'                                                       

server.document-root = '/somewhere/web2py'                                                    

server.errorlog      = '/tmp/error.log'                                                       

fastcgi.server = ('.fcgi' =>                                                                  

                    ('localhost' =>                                                           

                        ('min-procs' => 1,                                                    

                         'socket'    => '/tmp/fcgi.sock'                                      

                        )                                                                     

                    )                                                                         

                 )   

Lines like this:

"(^|/.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi/app/default/$1",

should not be in the lighttpd.conf