Dariusz on Software

Web2py is "full stack" Python Web Framework, Lighttpd is fast, multi-threaded HTTP server. I'll present a method to connect web2py-based application under lighttpd.

I assume the following setup is already done:

• A domain named "myapp.com" is configured to point to your server
• Python / lighttpd is already installed on server
• Your web2py app is placed under /var/www/web2py
• Your web2py app has application "myapproot" configured

First of all, you have to configure lighttpd to locate web2py application, create file /etc/lighttpd/conf-enabled/myapp.conf:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "(www\.)?myapp\.com" {
    server.indexfiles = ( "/myapproot" )
    server.document-root = "/var/www/myapp"
    server.dir-listing = "disable"
    fastcgi.server = (
        ".fcgi" => ("localhost" => (
            "check-local" => "disable",
            "min-procs" => "1",
            "max-procs" => "2",
            "socket" => "/tmp/myapp.sock")
        )
    )

    url.rewrite-once = (
        "^/$" => "/ad",
        "^(/.+?/static/.+)$" => "/applications$1",
        "(^|/.*)$" => "/fcgihandler.fcgi$1",
    )
    $HTTP["url"] !~ "^(/ad|/fcgihandler.fcgi|/applications/myapproot/static/)" {
        url.access-deny = ("")
    }
}

Explanation:

• (www\.)?myapp\.com: regular expression to match domain with or without "www." prefix
• server.indexfiles: specifies relative URL that should be called when only domain is given
• server.document-root: specifies location of web2py app in filesystem
• server.dir-listing: we do not want user to list our files using HTTP
• fastcgi.server: specifies where socket file is located
• url.rewrite-once: allow to use elegant (short) URLs
• url.access-deny: files other than static directory should be forbidden (security)

Then you have to configure fcgihandler.fcgi script properly:

(...)
fcgi.WSGIServer(application, bindAddress='/tmp/myapp.sock').run()

Note that /tmp/myapp.sock must be the same as specified in lighttpd configuration.

Then you have to start the fcgihandler.fcgi proces and ensure it will start on every boot. That's all.