X-Sendfile for large file transfers

I read Lighttpd’s weblog (Lighty’s Life) regularly and I remember Jan talking about X-Sendfile. I thought it was interesting, but never really thought about using it…. Until today!

Basically, if you have a Ruby on Rails (or other environment) page that transfers a really massive file to the client, you should use X-Sendfile.

Here is what you’ll need:

*Lighttpd Configuration*

To the FastCGI section of your lighty config, along with host, port, etc., add “allow-x-send-file” => “enable”

fastcgi.server = ( ".fcgi" =>
 (  "server_1"  => ( "host" => "10.0.1.1", "port" => 8000, "allow-x-send-file" => "enable" )
                        )