Lighttpd sipports gzip compression by using mod_compress module. The output compression reduces the network load and can improve the overall throughput of the webserver.

Configuration

Open your lighttpd configuration file:

	# vi /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Append the add mod_ compress to list of server modules:

	
	server.modules = ( "mod_compress" )

Setup compress.cache-dir to stored all cached file:

	compress.cache-dir = "/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/"

Define mimetypes to get compressed:

	compress.filetype = ("text/plain", "text/html", "text/css", "text/xml", "text/javascript")

Save and close the file. Create /var/cache/lighttpd/compress directory:

	# mkdir -p /var/cache/lighttpd/compress
	# chown lighttpd:lighttpd /var/cache/lighttpd/compress

Restart lighttpd:

	# /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Enable mod_compress per virtaul host:

Use conditional $HTTP host directive:

	$HTTP["host"] =~ "domain\.com" {
		compress.cache-dir = "/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/domain.com/"
	}

PHP dynamic compression

Open php.in file::

	# vi /etc/php.ini

Enable following two directives:

	zlib.output_compression = On
	zlib.output_handler = On

Save and close the file. Restart lighttpd:

	# /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Cleaning cache directory

Cleaning the cache is left to the user. A cron job deleting files older than 10 days could do it:

	# find /var/cache/lighttpd/compress -type f -mtime +10 | xargs -r rm

Better yet, create and install a script at /etc/cron.daily directory.:

	#!/bin/bash
	# Shell script to clean web server cache stored at /var/cache/lighttpd/compress/ directory.
	# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
	# Copyright (c) 2007 nixCraft project 
	# This script is licensed under GNU GPL version 2.0 or above
	# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
	# This script is part of nixCraft shell script collection (NSSC)
	# Visit http://bash.cyberciti.biz/ for more information.
	# -------------------------------------------------------------------------
	 
	# Cache dir path
	CROOT="/var/cache/lighttpd/compress/"
	 
	#Deleting files older than 10 days
	DAYS=10
	 
	# Lighttpd user and group
	LUSER="lighttpd"
	LGROUP="lighttpd"
	 
	# start cleaning
	find ${CROOT} -type f -mtime +${DAYS} | xargs -r /bin/rm
	 
	# if directory missing just recreate it
	if [ ! -d $CROOT ]
	then
		mkdir -p $CROOT
		chown ${LUSER}:${LGROUP} ${CROOT}
	fi

Reference:

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/lighttpd-mod_compress-gzip-compression-tutorial.html
http://bash.cyberciti.biz/file-management/cleaning-webserver-cache-script/
http://redmine.lighttpd.net/wiki/lighttpd/Docs:ModCompress