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Maniphest T423019

lighttpd: starting a webserver logs "WARNING: unknown config-key: server.dir-listing (ignored)" to error.log
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Description

Steps to replicate the issue (include links if applicable):

  • start a webserver with a command such as webservice php8.4 start or webservice restart
  • check ~/error.log

What happens?:

2026-04-12 00:36:58: (server.c.1974) server started (lighttpd/1.4.79)
2026-04-12 00:36:58: (configfile.c.1400) WARNING: unknown config-key: server.dir-listing (ignored)
2026-04-12 00:39:06: (server.c.1974) server started (lighttpd/1.4.79)
2026-04-12 00:39:06: (configfile.c.1400) WARNING: unknown config-key: server.dir-listing (ignored)

What should have happened instead?:

  • no warning in error.log

Software version (on Special:Version page; skip for WMF-hosted wikis like Wikipedia):

Other information (browser name/version, screenshots, etc.):

  • accounts where I was able to reproduce this: refill, novem-bot
  • do we need to remove server.dir-listing from the default .lighttpd.conf file?

Related Objects

Event Timeline

Novem_Linguae created this task.Apr 12 2026, 12:41 AM
Restricted Application added a project: cloud-services-team. · View Herald TranscriptApr 12 2026, 12:41 AM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript
bd808 subscribed.Apr 13 2026, 5:38 PM

The config in question comes from https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/plugins/gitiles/operations/docker-images/toollabs-images/+/2c64e77e9cd420755f38195ece012e5139a9785c/shared/lighttpd/webservice-runner#38. This hasn't changed since rODITe299db6e3481: Add php82 images where we first moved the lighttpd config logic from webservice into the shell script implementation.

I would assume that what has happened here is that a newer version of lighttpd has removed the setting. The main thing we should determine before removing it is if any of the actively supported lighttpd versions we have need it still. It probably would be good to check what the replacement is upstream and if we need to add that to the defaults instead/additionally.

bd808 added a comment.Apr 13 2026, 5:52 PM

Reading https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/Mod_dirlisting it looks like the modern setting is dir-listing.activate = "disable" which is also listed as the default.

NOTE: looking up things about lighttpd can be confusing online because the lighttpd 2.x docs at https://doc.lighttpd.net/lighttpd2/ often have better SEO than the lighttpd 1.x docs at https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd. Per the upstream "Lighttpd 2.0 is work in progress" and Debian is still shipping the 1.x series (bullseye: 1.4.59-1+deb11u2, bookworm: 1.4.69-1, trixie: 1.4.79-2, testing & unstable: 1.4.82-2)
aputhin triaged this task as Low priority.Wed, Apr 15, 2:27 PM
aputhin subscribed.

Tagging as "Low" prio for now as it doesn't seem to be blocking (only a Warning).

aputhin edited projects, added tools-platform-team; removed cloud-services-team.Wed, Apr 15, 2:28 PM
aputhin moved this task from Backlog to Todos on the tools-platform-team board.Wed, Apr 29, 2:09 PM
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