lighttpd a secure, fast, compliant and very flexible web-server which has been optimized for high-performance environments. It has a very low memory footprint compared to other webservers and takes care of cpu-load. Its advanced feature-set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) make lighttpd the perfect webserver-software for every server that is suffering load problems. Installing lighttpd is quite simple under FreeBSD operating system using ports.

Lighttpd on FreeBSD

First update your port tree by typing following commands:

# portsnap fetch
# portsnap update

Install lighttpd web server under FreeBSD

Lighttpd port is located under /usr/ports/www/lighttpd:
# cd /usr/ports/www/lighttpd

Install lighttpd:

# make
# make install
# make clean

Install MySQL server

Install MySQL server:

# cd /usr/ports/databases/mysql50-server/
# make
# make install
# make clean

Also install mysql client support

# /usr/ports/databases/mysql50-client
# make
# make install
# make clean

Finally install mysql scripts:

# cd /usr/ports/databases/mysql50-scripts
# make
# make install
# make clean

Install php5 for lighttpd

Install PHP5 scripting:
# cd /usr/ports/lang/php5
# make
# make install
# make clean

Next you must install PHP5 extensions such as GD, mysql support and so on. At least select following extensions from menu:
ctype: The ctype shared extension for php
curl: The curl shared extension for php
dom: The dom shared extension for php
gd: The gd shared extension for php
imap: The imap shared extension for php
mbstring: The mbstring shared extension for php
mcrypt: The mcrypt shared extension for php
mysql: The mysql shared extension for php
mysqli: The mysqli shared extension for php
pcre: The pcre shared extension for php
posix: The posix shared extension for php
session: The session shared extension for php
simplexml: The simplexml shared extension for php
xml: The xml shared extension for php
xmlreader: The xmlreader shared extension for php
xmlwriter: The xmlwriter shared extension for php
zlib: The zlib shared extension for php

Type the following command:

# cd /usr/ports/lang/php5-extensions
# make
# make install
# make clean

Auto start lighttpd and mysql service

You need to enable both services. Open /etc/rc.conf:
# vi /etc/rc.conf

Append following two lines:
mysql_enable=”YES”
lighttpd_enable=”YES”

Start Mysql Server Under FreeBSD

To start MySQL server, enter:
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server start

Start Lighttpd Server Under FreeBSD

To start Lighttpd server, enter:
# /usr/local/etc/rc.d/lighttpd start

This installation is not 100% yet. PHP is not integrated yet with Lighttpd

How to add PHP support to Lighttpd webserver?

Click here for more information