Welcome to The Cookbook

While lighttpd features a rewrite module, it is not an equivalent of Apache's mod_rewrite. To get 'pretty urls' while using Lighty, you have two options. Option one is using mod_rewrite, the second one is by using a LUA script and mod_magnet.

The easiest way to get pretty urls is by adding this script to your lighty config. Just edit the url, and you should be okay. Please note that this doesn't work on Cake installations in subdirectories.

$HTTP["host"] =~ "^(www\.)?example.com$" {
        url.rewrite-once = (
                # if the request is for css|files etc, do not pass on to Cake
                "/(css|files|img|js)/(.*)" => "/$1/$2",
                "^([^\?]*)(\?(.+))?$" => "/index.php?url=$1&$3",
        )
        evhost.path-pattern = "/home/%2-%1/www/www/%4/app/webroot/"
}

1. $HTTP["host"] =~ "^(www\.)?example.com$" {
2. url.rewrite-once = (
3. # if the request is for css|files etc, do not pass on to Cake
4. "/(css|files|img|js)/(.*)" => "/$1/$2",
5. "^([^\?]*)(\?(.+))?$" => "/index.php?url=$1&$3",
6. )
7. evhost.path-pattern = "/home/%2-%1/www/www/%4/app/webroot/"
8. }

To use pretty URLs with CakePHP and Lighttpd, place this lua script in /etc/lighttpd/cake.

-- little helper function
function file_exists(path)
  local attr = lighty.stat(path)
  if (attr) then
      return true
  else
      return false
  end
end
function removePrefix(str, prefix)
  return str:sub(1,#prefix+1) == prefix.."/" and str:sub(#prefix+2)
end

-- prefix without the trailing slash
local prefix = ''

-- the magic ;)
if (not file_exists(lighty.env["physical.path"])) then
    -- file still missing. pass it to the fastcgi backend
    request_uri = removePrefix(lighty.env["uri.path"], prefix)
    if request_uri then
      lighty.env["uri.path"]          = prefix .. "/index.php"
      local uriquery = lighty.env["uri.query"] or ""
      lighty.env["uri.query"] = uriquery .. (uriquery ~= "" and "&" or "") .. "url=" .. request_uri
      lighty.env["physical.rel-path"] = lighty.env["uri.path"]
      lighty.env["request.orig-uri"]  = lighty.env["request.uri"]
      lighty.env["physical.path"]     = lighty.env["physical.doc-root"] .. lighty.env["physical.rel-path"]
    end
end
-- fallthrough will put it back into the lighty request loop
-- that means we get the 304 handling for free. ;)

1. -- little helper function
2. function file_exists(path)
3. local attr = lighty.stat(path)
4. if (attr) then
5. return true
6. else
7. return false
8. end
9. end
10. function removePrefix(str, prefix)
11. return str:sub(1,#prefix+1) == prefix.."/" and str:sub(#prefix+2)
12. end
13. -- prefix without the trailing slash
14. local prefix = ''
15. -- the magic ;)
16. if (not file_exists(lighty.env["physical.path"])) then
17. -- file still missing. pass it to the fastcgi backend
18. request_uri = removePrefix(lighty.env["uri.path"], prefix)
19. if request_uri then
20. lighty.env["uri.path"] = prefix .. "/index.php"
21. local uriquery = lighty.env["uri.query"] or ""
22. lighty.env["uri.query"] = uriquery .. (uriquery ~= "" and "&" or "") .. "url=" .. request_uri
23. lighty.env["physical.rel-path"] = lighty.env["uri.path"]
24. lighty.env["request.orig-uri"] = lighty.env["request.uri"]
25. lighty.env["physical.path"] = lighty.env["physical.doc-root"] .. lighty.env["physical.rel-path"]
26. end
27. end
28. -- fallthrough will put it back into the lighty request loop
29. -- that means we get the 304 handling for free. ;)

If you run your CakePHP installation from a subdirectory, you must set prefix = 'subdirectory_name' in the above script.

Then tell Lighttpd about your vhost:

$HTTP["host"] =~ "example.com" {
        server.error-handler-404  = "/index.php"

        magnet.attract-physical-path-to = ( "/etc/lighttpd/cake.lua" )

        server.document-root = "/var/www/cake-1.2/app/webroot/"

        # Think about getting vim tmp files out of the way too
        url.access-deny = (
                "~", ".inc", ".sh", "sql", ".sql", ".tpl.php",
                ".xtmpl", "Entries", "Repository", "Root",
                ".ctp", "empty"
        )
}