[pkg-lighttpd] Bug#850061: lighttpd: should support reloading configuration without restarting

[Antoine Amarilli]

Package: lighttpd
Version: 1.4.43+git20161216-1
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

The way lighttpd is packaged by Debian does not seem to make it possible to
reload lighttd's configuration without restarting it (terminating any ongoing
client connections).

Specifically, sending SIGHUP to lighttpd does not appear to make it reload its
configuration, and running systemctl force-reload lighttpd.service makes it
restart, which kills ongoing connections.

I think it would be preferable to run lighttpd using the lighttpd-angel program
(which is part of the lighttpd distribution, and also shipped by Debian), which
makes it possible to restart a new lighttpd with the new configuration while
leaving the old one around to finish handling ongoing connections.

More information:
<https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2011-January/001067.html>
<https://blog.lighttpd.net/articles/2007/09/02/there-is-an-angel-for-lighty/>

Using lighttpd-angel, it should be possible to ask lighttpd to reload its
configuration without terminating ongoing connections.

Thanks!


-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (650, 'testing'), (600, 'experimental'), (600, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.8.0-2-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages lighttpd depends on:
ii  init-system-helpers  1.46
ii  libattr1             1:2.4.47-2
ii  libbz2-1.0           1.0.6-8
ii  libc6                2.24-8
ii  libfam0              2.7.0-17.2
ii  libpcre3             2:8.39-2
ii  libssl1.1            1.1.0c-2
ii  lsb-base             9.20161125
ii  mime-support         3.60
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.8.dfsg-4

Versions of packages lighttpd recommends:
ii  spawn-fcgi  1.6.4-1

Versions of packages lighttpd suggests:
ii  apache2-utils  2.4.25-1
pn  lighttpd-doc   <none>
ii  openssl        1.1.0c-2
pn  php5-cgi       <none>
pn  rrdtool        <none>

-- Configuration Files:
/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf changed [not included]

-- no debconf information