How to Set Up Lighttpd with PHP‑FPM on a Raspberry Pi

Lighttpd, like Nginx, is designed for low‑memory, low‑CPU devices and runs well on a Raspberry Pi. This tutorial explains how to install a basic Lighttpd configuration on the Pi and integrate it with PHP‑FPM.

Prerequisites

Raspberry Pi with a recent Debian‑based OS.

Internet connection for package installation.

Installation Steps

Update the system packages:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Remove any existing Apache2 installation (skip if already removed): $ sudo apt-get remove apache2 Install Lighttpd: $ sudo apt-get install lighttpd Verify Lighttpd is running by opening the Pi’s LAN IP address in a browser. Find the IP with: $ hostname -I The default page will be displayed.

Optionally edit the default HTML page: $ sudo vim /var/www/html/index.html Install PHP‑FPM (PHP 7 is recommended for better performance and memory handling): $ sudo apt-get install php7.0-fpm Enable FastCGI modules for Lighttpd:

$ sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi
$ sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi-php

Configure Lighttpd to use PHP‑FPM instead of the default PHP‑CGI. Edit the FastCGI config file:

$ sudo vim /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/15-fastcgi-php.conf

Replace its contents with the following snippet:

# -*- depends: fastcgi -*-
# /usr/share/doc/lighttpd/fastcgi.txt.gz
# http://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/Docs:ConfigurationOptions#mod_fastcgi-fastcgi

## Start a FastCGI server for php (needs the php5-cgi package)
fastcgi.server += ( ".php" =>
    ((
        "socket" => "/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock",
        "broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
    ))
) )

Reload Lighttpd to apply the changes: $ sudo service lighttpd force-reload Create a simple PHP file to test the configuration: $ sudo vim /var/www/html/index.php Insert the following content: <?php phpinfo(); ?> Access the Pi’s IP address again in a browser. If a PHP information page appears, Lighttpd with PHP‑FPM is successfully set up.

Images in the original article illustrate each step; they have been retained for reference.