Friendly URLs on lighttpd

lighttpd does not use Apache-style .htaccess files. Friendly URL rewrites belong in lighttpd.conf (often /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf on Linux).

This setup is uncommon for MODX hosting. Prefer Apache or nginx when you can. After rewrites work, finish the MODX steps in Using Friendly URLs.

Enable mod_rewrite¶

1. Open lighttpd.conf.
2. Find server.modules.
3. Ensure mod_rewrite is listed and not commented out.
4. Reload lighttpd after saving.

Add rewrite rules¶

Find the host / document-root block for the site, for example:

$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" {
  $HTTP["host"] =~ "example.com" {
    server.document-root = "/var/www/example.com"
    server.name = "example.com"

Add rules under that host so existing files and the assets, manager, connectors, and .well-known paths are not rewritten. core/ is deliberately left out so its files (for example core/docs/changelog.txt) are never served as static files — requests fall through to MODX and get a 404:

    url.rewrite-once = (
        "^/(assets|manager|connectors|\.well-known)(.*)$" => "/$1/$2",
        "^/(?!index\.php)(.*)\?(.*)$" => "/index.php?q=$1&$2",
        "^/(?!index\.php)(.*)$" => "/index.php?q=$1"
    )

Exclude more paths¶

lighttpd only skips paths you list. To protect another web-accessible directory, extend the first pattern with |dirname, for example (assets|manager|connectors|media). Add |robots\.txt|/favicon\.ico to the same pattern if those files live in the document root and should be served directly.

These rules target lighttpd 1.4.x, which matches the full request URI including the query string.

Reload lighttpd, then enable Friendly URLs in the Manager and clear the cache.