xref: /lighttpd1.4/doc/outdated/features.txt (revision c752d469)
1===============
2progress report
3===============
4
5:Author: Jan Kneschke
6:Date: $Date: 2004/11/03 22:26:05 $
7:Revision: $Revision: 1.2 $
8
9:abstract:
10  This document tries to track the requested features and
11  the release when they have been implemented.
12
13.. meta::
14  :keywords: lighttpd, features
15
16.. contents:: Table of Contents
17
18Description
19===========
20
21The document was inspired by a mail from David Phillips:
22
23http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=thttpd&m=108051453226692&w=2
24
25It is used to see what is still missing and what is already done. ::
26
27  [email protected] writes:
28  > Now that the author has made the source code available, I am
29  > considering installing and testing the latest version.  From a
30  > quick glance, it seems to support most/all of the features of
31  > Premium thttpd and Zeus.
32
33  If you think it compares to Zeus, then you've obviously never used Zeus.
34
35  lighttpd is currently the only non-blocking open source web server to
36  support FastCGI responders and that's worthwhile.
37
38  The documentation is lacking.  Comments in the configuration file do not
39  make up for a complete manual.
40
41Constantly improving. ::
42
43  The configuration syntax is overly complex, like Apache.  There is no .htaccess
44  support.
45
46.htaccess support is not planned yet. ::
47
48  There is only one server.  You cannot have a separate configuration for each
49  virtual server.  This would seem to be especially problematic when doing
50  SSL.
51
52Works since 1.3.0. ::
53
54  There is no SSI support.  Zeus has full recursive SSI support.  Output from
55  a FastCGI program can get run through the SSI interpreter.  SSI can also do
56  virtual includes recursively.
57
58SSI works since 1.2.4. ::
59
60  Request logging is not configurable.  Zeus supports fully configurable
61  access logging, plus a binary version of CLF that save space.
62
631.2.6 adds Apache-like logfile config. ::
64
65  Access control only allows authentication via username and password.  There
66  is no way to allow or deny based in IP address.
67
68planned for 1.3.x ::
69
70  The request rewriting appears to only allow regex substitutions.  Zeus has a
71  simple, yet powerful, request rewrite language.
72
73
74
75  There is no support for FastCGI authorizers.  These are very useful for high
76  traffic sites that require complex authentication schemes or that store
77  authorization information in a central database.
78
79since 1.1.9. ::
80
81  There is no bandwidth throttling support.  Zeus does bandwidth throttling
82  correctly (i.e. unlike past versions of thttpd) and can throttle on a
83  per-subserver (thttpd-style virtual hosts) basis.
84
85since 1.3.8. ::
86
87  There is no ISAPI support.  ISAPI is an elegant, open API that allows
88  modification of web server behavior.  While it isn't strictly necessary for
89  an open source web server, it nice to have a documented, consistent API,
90  rather than having to manually patch the server.
91
92If someone requests it it might be implemented. ::
93
94  There is no web based interface.  Zeus has a complete web based interface
95  for everything, including a powerful feature of configuring multiple virtual
96  servers at once.
97
98That is something that should be a special feature of Zeus. :) ::
99
100  There is no support for mapping certain URLs to specific filesystem paths.
101
102since 1.2.6 ::
103
104  There is no referring checking.  This is incredibly important to prevent
105  hotlinking of bandwidth intensive media types (images, movies, etc.).
106
107we have something better: mod_secdownload. And if someone wants referer
108checking we have a condition in the config for it since 1.2.9 ::
109
110  Zeus has a lot of features that lighttpd doesn't have, but I only mentioned
111  the ones I care about and use.
112
113  --
114  David Phillips <[email protected]>
115  http://david.acz.org/
116
117