Running WordPress on Lighttpd

I’ve finally moved the site to a new server.  My new host is a 1 gig slice at SliceHost, which will be hosting all my sites (yes, I really need a 1 gig slice) from now on.

One of my big goals was to completely drop Apache.  I just don’t like that server.  Ugly to configure, huge, slow & bloated.  I much prefer Lighttpd for my Django & Satchmo projects, but I hadn’t ever tried using it for PHP.  Today I bit the bullet and started the transition.

A few details before I get into how I’ve got the blog configured.  My VPS “Slice” is running Debian.  This is hands-down, my favorite Linux distribution.  I can’t stand RedHat VPS system, to be honest.  RPM hell, upgrade hell, cpanel.  Ugh.

Debian is so much more simple and clean.  No RPM hell, easy upgrades.  Do yourself a favor and give it a try.

Getting the site up and running on Debian was almost dead simple.  Just one tricky bit at the end.

First, I installed lighttpd, php5 (cgi) and mysql with “aptitude install lighttpd lighttpd-mod-magnet mysql-server”

Note: I installed a bunch of other php5 packages too, like php5-curl, php-pear, php5-mysql.  That’s going to be up to your needs.  Just run Aptitude and search for php5, cursor up and down with arrows and press “+” to tell it you want to install a package, press ‘g’ to go ahead and install what you’ve just selected.

Now for the tricky bit.  Making WordPress work with Lighty.  You’ve already got mod_magnet installed.  Refer to this blog entry for help doing that.

Bingo bango, WordPress is moved over cleanly from my old host.  No annoying old Apache, it is fast, and has nearly no overhead.

[tags]lighttpd,wordpress,debian[/tags]

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