lighttpd not serving files

Question

I'm using lighttpd 1.4.19 on Ubuntu 9.04 and I'm having an odd problem. I'm using it to serve static content, mostly pictures. But when i go to the picture url, the picture doesn't actually show up. it loads, but theres nothing there. When I tried to get an mp3 from it, when I clicked the link, it downloaded the file, but it was 0Kb. which the actual file isn't. Can anyone tell me why this would happen and how to fix it?

Answer 1

Check your server logs to see what it says at /var/log/lighttpd/access.log. Most important column is the HTTP Status and Transfer size columns. If the status was 200 and the transfer size is XXXbytes, then the transfer had succeeded on lighttpd's side.

• It could be a permissions problem. By default, lighttpd runs as user www-data and you need to make sure that that user can read those files that you are loading.
• Try loading a static test.html file to see if it is a problem with content. If the text file transfers but not the media files, this might indicate another problem.