NGINX-Core Makes It Into Ubuntu 14.04 Main Archive

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NGINX-Core Makes It Into Ubuntu 14.04 Main Archive

A few months ago we wrote about NGINX slated to play a bigger role in Ubuntu 14.04 with this lightweight web server alternative to Apache HTTPD being sought after for inclusion into the "Trusty Tahr" main archive. That milestone has now been reached...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTYyOTU

[AJenbo]

Does this mean that we will se 1.5 arrive as a SRU at some point?

[scottishduck]

I think the widespread use of nginx at this point no longer makes it an "Apache alternative"

[uid313]

Lighttpd

I really like Lighttpd because its so easy to set up.

# Setup web server
sudo apt-get install lighttpd php5-cgi
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi
sudo lighty-enable-mod fastcgi-php 

That's all there is to it.
That's how easy it is to install and setup.

Also its lightweight and fast.

[FourDMusic]

I love ngnix - no regrest from switching to it from Apache. It's incredibly light weight and efficient, yet you can still add the features you want when you need them.

[0xBADCODE]

I really like Lighttpd because its so easy to set up.
[...]
Also its lightweight and fast.

Unfortunately there is nasty catch: as far as I know, lighttpd would buffer WHOLE answer of backend. Should backend return hure response, lighty no longer light and would actually turn into memory hog. Not just it disallows to serve big files using backends but also causes reliability issues as runaway script or other failure of backend can cause trouble for frontend as well. This is bad thing. Lighttpd 1.5 or 2.x were supposed to fix this but ...never appeared in place in release shape. Nginx on other hand uses far smarter approach with *partial* response caching. It also can do really great dynamic to static caching which can allow to survive slashdot effect or simple application level attack easily with modest system resources.

[uid313]

I love ngnix - no regrest from switching to it from Apache. It's incredibly light weight and efficient, yet you can still add the features you want when you need them.

I never used nginx, but I heard it is hard to configure.
I heard you must re-compile it to change some settings.

Unfortunately there is nasty catch: as far as I know, lighttpd would buffer WHOLE answer of backend. Should backend return hure response, lighty no longer light and would actually turn into memory hog. Not just it disallows to serve big files using backends but also causes reliability issues as runaway script or other failure of backend can cause trouble for frontend as well. This is bad thing. Lighttpd 1.5 or 2.x were supposed to fix this but ...never appeared in place in release shape. Nginx on other hand uses far smarter approach with *partial* response caching. It also can do really great dynamic to static caching which can allow to survive slashdot effect or simple application level attack easily with modest system resources.

Thanks!
I didn't knew that.
I never used Lighttpd in production environments, only for local web development.
I'll continue using it for local web development though, just because it is so simple and quick to setup.

[AJenbo]

I heard you must re-compile it to change some settings.

Well that is just wrong.

Install Nginx and set it up with PHP:

sudo apt-get install nginx php5-fpm
sudo nano /etc/nginx/site-avalible/default

Uncomment php

sudo service nginx reload

Also Apache is simpler then lighttpd:

sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-php5

[sreyan]

nginx is in core, but it's not build as a position independent executable.

Nginx (nginx-core 1.4.6-1ubuntu3) isn't built as a pie in ubuntu 14.04. Generally long lived executables like apache2 and cups are (correctly IMO) built with pie enabled.

Michael: Any ideas on how much turning on PIE would reduce performance on amd64 and i386 for nginx while serving static pages?

$ hardening-check /usr/sbin/nginx
/usr/sbin/nginx:
Position Independent Executable: no, normal executable!
Stack protected: yes
Fortify Source functions: yes (some protected functions found)
Read-only relocations: yes
Immediate binding: no, not found!

$ hardening-check /usr/sbin/apache2
/usr/sbin/apache2:
Position Independent Executable: yes
Stack protected: yes
Fortify Source functions: yes (some protected functions found)
Read-only relocations: yes
Immediate binding: yes

$ dpkg -l | grep "nginx-core"
ii nginx-core 1.4.6-1ubuntu3 amd64 nginx web/proxy server (core version)

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release: 14.04