Web Development¶

Apache

• Memory use = High | Multithreaded = Yes

It is feature-rich and popular. It is recommended for beginners and users who are looking to follow Apache based guides.

Nginx

• Memory use = Medium | Multithreaded = Yes

It is a lightweight alternative to Apache and claims¹ faster webserver performance compared to Apache. It is ideal for medium-high traffic situations where Lighttpd will suffer.

Lighttpd

• Memory use = Low | Multithreaded = Optional - Some drawbacks

It is extremely lightweight and is generally considered to offer the “best” webserver performance on Linux for SBCs (single board computers). It is recommended for users who expect low webserver traffic and/or personal use.

Although the DietPi installation of Lighttpd is set to single threaded, do not be put off by this, in low usage scenarios (<10 users) it will still outperform Nginx and Apache. Activation of multithreading is described in the Lighttpd package description.

MariaDB
It is an open source RDBMS (relational data base management system). It is application compatible to MySQL, i.e. it can be used as a drop in replacement for MySQL. It has more features, fewer bugs, and a better performance compared to MySQL.

SQLite
It is an RDBMS, also compatible to MySQL. It offers a broader language support (i.e. more bindings to programming languages) compared to MariaDB. SQLite has a very small footprint. As drawbacks, it has no memory caching, no multi user capabilities and a couple of SQL features are missing.²

Access website:

• URL = http://<your.IP> or http://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

For database, check MariaDB details.

Let’s Encrypt is highly recommended - see here how to install. This will automate the creation and setup of your free SSL cert.

mkdir -p /etc/apache2/ssl
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 1000 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt

chmod 600 /etc/apache2/ssl/*
cat << '_EOF_' > /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost _default_:443>
            ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
            ServerName example.com:443
            DocumentRoot /var/www

            LogLevel error
            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            #CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

            SSLEngine on

            SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key

            <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </FilesMatch>
            <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </Directory>
        </VirtualHost>
    </IfModule>
_EOF_
a2ensite ssl
systemctl restart apache2

Access website:

• URL = https://<your.IP> or https://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Access website:

• URL = http://<your.IP> or http://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Let’s Encrypt is highly recommended - see here how to install. This will automate the creation and setup of your free SSL cert.

mkdir -p /etc/apache2/ssl
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 1000 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt

chmod 600 /etc/apache2/ssl/*
cat << '_EOF_' > /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost _default_:443>
            ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
            ServerName example.com:443
            DocumentRoot /var/www

            LogLevel error
            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            #CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

            SSLEngine on

            SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key

            <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </FilesMatch>
            <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </Directory>
        </VirtualHost>
    </IfModule>
_EOF_
a2ensite ssl
systemctl restart apache2

Access website:

• URL = https://<your.IP> or https://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Access website:

• URL = http://<your.IP> or http://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

For database, check MariaDB details.

Let’s Encrypt is highly recommended - see here how to install. This will automate the creation and setup of your free SSL cert.

mkdir -p /etc/apache2/ssl
openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 1000 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key -out /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt

chmod 600 /etc/apache2/ssl/*
cat << '_EOF_' > /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/default-ssl.conf
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
    <VirtualHost _default_:443>
            ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
            ServerName example.com:443
            DocumentRoot /var/www

            LogLevel error
            ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
            #CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

            SSLEngine on

            SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.crt
            SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/apache.key

            <FilesMatch "\.(cgi|shtml|phtml|php)$">
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </FilesMatch>
            <Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
                            SSLOptions +StdEnvVars
            </Directory>
        </VirtualHost>
    </IfModule>
_EOF_
a2ensite ssl
systemctl restart apache2

Access website:

• URL = https://<your.IP> or https://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Access website:

• URL = http://<your.IP> or http://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Let’s Encrypt is highly recommended - see here how to install. This will automate the creation and setup of your free SSL cert.

Access website:

• URL = https://<your.IP> or https://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Access website:

• URL = http://<your.IP> or http://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

For database, check MariaDB details.

Let’s Encrypt is highly recommended - see here how to install. This will automate the creation and setup of your free SSL cert.

Access website:

• URL = https://<your.IP> or https://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

Access website:

• URL = http://<your.IP> or http://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

For database, check MariaDB details.

Let’s Encrypt is highly recommended - see here how to install. This will automate the creation and setup of your free SSL cert.

Access website:

• URL = https://<your.IP> or https://<your.host.name>
• Local directory = /var/www

The web development stack could be also individually installed. This option offers more flexibility giving the opportunity to select:

• Webserver

Depending on your needs, you may choose the web server that fits best your needs. In case Lighttpd is not the right choice, you could continue with Apache Web Server, Nginx or Tomcat webserver.

• Database

You may choose to install MariaDB or other available databases like InfluxDB, Redis, SQLite.

Logging is done to journal by default, and you can view the details by executing next command:

journalctl -u apache2

The ServerName directive is updated with the local IP. This helps muting the related startup warnings.

Notes:

• This may imply access and CORS failures³ when applications check for the server name. In such case, generally applications provide a way to define a list of permitted hostnames.

• Without a server name set, usually webserver simply apply the HTTP_HOST header, which bypasses every related check. Apache, according to the logged warning, seems to use 127.0.1.1 then.

After the installation, check if Lighttpd service is running on http://<your.IP>.

Multithreading is supported by Lighttpd and can be enabled in the configuration file /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf. Change the value of 4 to your total core count:

server.max-worker = 4

Then restart services:

systemctl restart lighttpd

Depending on the Debian version, different Apache Tomcat versions are compatible (see also the Debian Tomcat package information):

To install Tomcat, run the according command in the console, e.g. for Debian Bookworm:

apt install tomcat10

The web interface is accessible via port 8080:

• URL = http://<your.IP>:8080

• There are many tutorials - here is the official Getting started from PHP documentation.

In order to use Flask it is first required first to install the Python Package Manager - see Python 3. Then, the following command is executed to install Flask:

pip3 install -U Flask

This command can also be used to update an existing Flask installation.