OpenLiteSpeed Web Server Users' Manual

Version 1.4 Rev. 2
Configuration

Virtual Host General

Table of Contents

General

Document Root | Administrator Email | Enable GZIP | Enable IP Geolocation | SPDY Advertisement | 

Virtual Host Log

Use Server's Log | File Name | Log Level | Rolling Size (bytes) | 

Access Log

Log Control | File Name | Piped Logger | Log Format | Log Headers | Rolling Size (bytes) | Keep Days | Bytes Log | Compress Archive | 

Index Files

Use Server Index Files | Index Files | Auto Index | Auto Index URI | 

Customized Error Pages

Error Code | URL | 

Expires Settings

Enable Expires | Expires Default | Expires By Type | 

File Upload

Temporary File Path | Temporary File Permissions | Pass Upload Data by File Path | 

Script Handler Definition

Suffix | Handler Type | Handler Name | 

Expire Settings

Enable Expires | Expires Default | Expires By Type | 

Document RootGo to top
Description: Specifies the document root for this virtual host. $VH_ROOT/html is recommended. This directory is referred to as $DOC_ROOT in contexts.
Syntax: A path which can be absolute, relative to $SERVER_ROOT, or relative to $VH_ROOT.
Administrator EmailGo to top
Description: Specifies email address(es) of the administrator(s) of this virtual host.
Syntax: Comma separated list of email addresses
Enable GZIPGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to enable GZIP compression for this virtual host. This setting is only effective when GZIP compression is enabled at the server level. Compression settings are configured at the server level (Tuning > GZIP).
Syntax: Select from radio box
See Also: Enable Compression, Compression Level (Static Content), Enable Dynamic Compression, Compression Level (Dynamic Content)
Enable IP GeolocationGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to enable/disable IP Geolocation lookup. Can be set at server, virtual host, or context level. IP Geolocation is disabled by default when using value "Not Set".
Syntax: Select from radio box
See Also: Use Client IP in Header, DB File Path, DB Cache Type
SPDY AdvertisementGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to advertise to clients that SPDY protocol is available. If set, LSWS will send an Alternate-Protocol response header when a client accesses SPDY-enabled websites through an HTTP connection. This requires the website to have both HTTP and HTTPS connections set up, and SPDY support enabled.
Syntax: port:protocol string
Example: If SPDY/3 is enabled on port 443, you can set the string to "443:npn-spdy/3"
Use Server's LogGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to put log messages from this virtual host into the server log file instead of creating its own log file.
Syntax: Select from radio box
File NameGo to top
Description: Specifies the path for the log file.
Syntax: Filename which can be an absolute path or a relative path to $SERVER_ROOT, $VH_ROOT.
Tips: [Performance] Place the log file on a separate disk.
Log LevelGo to top
Description: Specifies the level of logging. Available levels (from high to low) are ERROR, WARNING, NOTICE, INFO, and DEBUG. Only messages with a level higher than or equal to the current setting will be logged. If you want to set it to DEBUG, you must set the server log level to DEBUG as well. The level of debugging is controlled solely at the server level by Debug Level.
Syntax: Select from drop down list
Tips: [Performance] Unless Debug Level is set to a level other than NONE, DEBUG log level does not have any performance impact and is recommended.
See Also: Debug Level
Rolling Size (bytes)Go to top
Description: Specifies when the current log file needs to be rolled over, also known as log rotation. When the file size is over the rollover limit, the active log file will be renamed to log_name.mm_dd_yyyy(.sequence) in the same directory and a new active log file will be created. The actual size of the rotated log file once it is created will sometimes be a little bigger than this size limit. Set to 0 to disable log rotation.
Syntax: Integer number
Tips: Append "K", "M", "G" to the number for kilo-, mega- and giga- bytes.
Log ControlGo to top
Description: Where the access log should be written. There are three options:
  1. Write to the server's access log
  2. Create an access log for this virtual host
  3. Disable access logging
Syntax: Select from drop down list
File NameGo to top
Description: The access log filename.
Syntax: Filename which can be an absolute path or a relative path to $SERVER_ROOT, $VH_ROOT.
Tips: [Performance] Put access log file on a separate disk.
Piped LoggerGo to top
Description: Specifies the external application that will receive the access log data sent by LiteSpeed through a pipe on its STDIN stream (file handle is 0). When this field is specified, the access log will be sent only to the logger application and not the access log file specified in previous entry.

The logger application must be defined in External Application section first. Server-level access logging can only use an external logger application defined at the server level. Virtual host-level access logging can only use a logger application defined at the virtual host level.

The logger process is spawned in the same way as other external (CGI/FastCGI/LSAPI) processes. This means it will execute as the user ID specified in the virtual host's ExtApp Set UID Mode settings and will never run on behalf of a privileged user.

LiteSpeed web server performs simple load balancing among multiple logger applications if more than one instance of a logger application is configured. LiteSpeed server always attempts to keep the number of logger applications as low as possible. Only when one logger application fails to process access log entries in time will the server attempt to spawn another instance of the logger application.

If a logger crashes, the web server will start another instance but the log data in the stream buffer will be lost. It is possible to lose log data if external loggers cannot keep up with the speed and volume of the log stream.
Syntax: Select from drop down list
Log FormatGo to top
Description: Specifies the log format for the access log. When log format is set, it will override the Log Headers setting.
Syntax: String. The syntax of log format is compatible with Apache 2.0's custom log format.
Example:
Common Log Format (CLF)
"%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b"

Common Log Format with Virtual Host
"%v %h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b"

NCSA extended/combined log format
"%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-agent}i\"

Log cookie value of Foobar
"%{Foobar}C"
See Also: Log Headers
Log HeadersGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to log HTTP request headers: Referer, UserAgent, and Host.
Syntax: Select from checkbox
Tips: [Performance] Turn this off if you do not need these headers in the access log.
See Also: Log Format
Keep DaysGo to top
Description: Specifies how many days the access log file will be kept on disk. Only rotated log files older than the specified number of days will be deleted. The current log file will not be touched regardless how many days worth of data it contains. If you do not want to auto-delete stale and very old log files, set this to 0.
Syntax: Integer number
Bytes LogGo to top
Description: Specifies the path to the bandwidth bytes log file. When specified, a cPanel compatible bandwidth log will be created. This will log the total bytes transferred for a request including both the request and reply bodies.
Syntax: Filename which can be an absolute path or a relative path to $SERVER_ROOT.
Tips: [Performance] Put the log file on a separate disk.
Compress ArchiveGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to compress rotated log files in order to save disk space.
Syntax: Select from radio box
Tips: Log files are highly compressible and this is recommended to reduce disk usage for old logs.
Use Server Index FilesGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to use the server's index file settings. If set to Yes, only the server's settings will be used. If set to No, the server's settings will not be used. If set to Addition, additional index files can be added to server's index file list for this virtual host. If you want to disable index files for this virtual host, you can set the value to No and leave the index files field empty.
Syntax: Select from drop down list
Index FilesGo to top
Description: Specifies names of index files that will be searched sequentially when a URL is mapped to a directory. You can customize it at the server, virtual host, and context level.
Syntax: Comma-delimited list of index filenames.
Tips: [Performance] Only set index files that you need.
Auto IndexGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to generate a directory index on the fly when index files listed in Index Files are not available in a directory. This option is customizable at the virtual host and context level, and is inherited along the directory tree until it is explicitly overridden. You can customize the generated index page. Please check online wiki How-tos.
Syntax: Select from radio box
Tips: [Security] It is recommended to turn off Auto Index wherever possible to prevent revealing confidential data.
See Also: Index Files, Auto Index URI
Auto Index URIGo to top
Description: Specifies the URI that will be used to generate the index page when index files listed in Index Files are not available in a directory. LiteSpeed web server uses an external script to generate the index page providing the maximum customization flexibility. The default script produces an index page with same look as Apache's. To customize the generated index page, please read online wiki How-tos. The directory to be indexed is passed to the script via an environment variable "LS_AI_PATH".
Syntax: URI
See Also: Index Files, Auto Index
Customized Error PagesGo to top
Description: Whenever the server has a problem processing a request, the server will return an error code and an html page as an error message to the web client. Error codes are defined in the HTTP protocol (see RFC 2616). LiteSpeed web server has a built-in default error page for each error code, but a customized page can be configured for each error code as well. These error pages can be even further customized to be unique for each virtual host.
Error CodeGo to top
Description: Specifies the HTTP status code for the error page. Only the selected HTTP status code will have this customized error page.
Syntax: Select from drop down list
URLGo to top
Description: Specifies the URL of the customized error page. The server will forward the request to this URL when the corresponding HTTP status code has returned. If this URL refers to a non-existing resource, the built-in error page will be used. The URL can be a static file, a dynamically generated page, or a page on another web site (a URL starting with "http(s)://"). When referring to a page on another web site, the client will receive a redirect status code instead of the original status code.
Syntax: URL
Enable ExpiresGo to top
Description: Specifies whether to generate an Expires header for static files. If enabled, an Expires header will be generated based on Expires Default and Expires By Type.

This can be set at server, virtual host and context level. Lower level settings will override higher level ones, i.e. context settings will override virtual host settings and virtual host settings will override server settings.
Syntax: Select from radio box
Expires DefaultGo to top
Description: Specifies default settings for Expires header generation. This setting takes effect when Enable Expires is set to "Yes". It can be overridden by Expires By Type. Do not set this default at the server or virtual host level unless you have to, since it will generate Expires headers for all pages. Most of time this should be set at the context level for certain directories that do not change often. If there is no default setting, no Expires header will be generated for types not specified in Expires By Type.
Syntax: A|Mseconds
The file will expire after base time(A|M) plus specified seconds. Base time "A" sets the value to the client's access time and "M" to the file's last modified time.
Expires By TypeGo to top
Description: Specifies Expires header settings for individual MIME types.
Syntax: Comma delimited list of "MIME-type=A|Mseconds". The file will expire after base time (A|M) plus specified seconds.

Base time "A" sets the value to the client's access time and "M" to the file's last modified time. MIME-type accepts wildcard "*", like image/*.
File UploadGo to top
Description: Provides additional security functionality when uploading files by using a Request Body Parser to parse files to a server local directory where they can be easily scanned for malicious intent by third party modules. Request Body Parser is used when Pass Upload Data by File Path is enabled or a module calls LSIAPI’s set_parse_req_body in the LSI_HKPT_HTTP_BEGIN level. API examples provided in source package.
See Also: Hook::HTTP_BEGIN Priority
Temporary File PathGo to top
Description: Temporary directory where files being uploaded to server will be stored while request body parser is working. Default value is /tmp/lshttpd/.
Syntax: Absolute path or path starting with $SERVER_ROOT (for Server and VHost levels) or $VH_ROOT (for VHost levels).
Temporary File PermissionsGo to top
Description: Determines file permissions used for files stored in temporary directory. Server level setting is global, can be overridden at VHost level.
Syntax: 3 digits octet number. Default value is 666.
Pass Upload Data by File PathGo to top
Description: Specify whether or not to pass upload file data by path. If enabled, file path along with some other information is sent to backend handler instead of file itself when uploading. This saves on CPU resources and file transfer time but requires some updates to backend to implement. If disabled, file content will be transferred to backend handler, request body is still parsed to files.
Syntax: Select from radio box
Tips: [performance] Enable this to speed up file upload processing if backward compatibility is not an issue.
SuffixGo to top
Description: Specifies the script file suffixes that will be handled by this script handler. Suffixes must be unique.
Syntax: Comma delimited list with period "." character prohibited.
Tips: The server will automatically add a special MIME type ("application/x-httpd-[suffix]") for the first suffix in the list. For example, MIME type "application/x-httpd-php53" will be added for suffix "php53". Suffixes after the first need to set up in the MIME Settings settings.
Though we list suffixes in this field, the script handlers use MIME types, not suffixes, to decide which scripts to handle.
[Performance & Security] Only specify the suffixes you really need.
Handler TypeGo to top
Description: Specifies the type of external application that processes these script files. Available types are: CGI, FastCGI, Web Server, LSAPI app, Load balancer, or Servlet Engine. For FastCGI, Web Server and Servlet Engine, a Handler Name needs to be specified. This is an external application name as predefined in the External Application section.
Syntax: Select from drop down list
Handler NameGo to top
Description: Specifies the name of the external application that processes the script files when the handler type is FastCGI, Web Server, LSAPI, Load Balancer, or Servlet Engine.
Syntax: Select from drop down list