yet another lighttpd restart script

#!/bin/sh

USERNAME=username
LIGHTTPD_CONF=/home/$USERNAME/service/lighttpd.conf
PIDFILE=/home/$USERNAME/service/logs/lighttpd.pid
HTTPD=/home/$USERNAME/lighttpd/sbin/lighttpd

PID=0
if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
    PID=`cat $PIDFILE`
    if [ "x" == "x$PID" ]; then
        PID=0
    fi
fi

case "$1" in
    start)
        if [ 0 -ne $PID ]; then
            running=`ps --pid $PID | grep $PID`
            if [ $running ]; then
                echo "lighttpd is already running"
                exit 1
            fi
            rm $PIDFILE
            PID=0
        fi
        $HTTPD -f $LIGHTTPD_CONF
        ;;
    stop)
        if [ 0 -eq $PID ]; then
            echo "lighttpd was not running"
            exit 1
        fi
        kill $PID
        tries=""
        while [ -e $PIDFILE ]; do
            if [ "x$tries" == "x.........." ]; then
                break
            fi
            sleep 2
            tries=".$tries"
        done
        if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
            echo "lighttpd did not go gentle into that good night, murdering"
            kill -9 $PID
            rm $PIDFILE
        fi
        ;;
    restart)
        $0 stop
        $0 start
        ;;
    reload)
        if [ 0 -eq $PID ]; then
            echo "lighttpd was not running"
        fi
        kill -HUP $PID
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: "`basename $0`" (start|stop|restart|reload)"
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

Restart lighttpd script

I use this script to avoid having to do the killall dance on my local dev box constantly when tweaking my lighttpd.conf

#!/bin/sh
sudo killall -9 lighttpd
sudo killall -9 ruby
sudo /opt/local/sbin/lighttpd -f /opt/local/etc/lighttpd.conf

Make the script executable (chmod u+x), put it in your path, invoke by simply typing the name of the script. This also kills off any ruby processes, which lighttpd will restart when it reboots.

The path to lighttpd and the lighttpd.conf files are based on the installation from DarwinPorts - adjust as needed.

How to flush the local DNS cache on Mac OS X

If you want to add a virtualhost on your Mac OS X box without having to wait around for ages, then the easiest way to do so is to shove a line into /etc/hosts and flush the dnscache. Here's a friendly bash function to throw into your .bashrc:

function edithosts {
        if [ -x "`which $EDITOR`" ] || [ -x "`which $1`" ]
        then
                if [ -x "`which $EDITOR`" ]
                then
                        export TEMP_EDIT="`which $EDITOR`"
                else
                        export TEMP_EDIT="`which $1`"
                fi
                echo "* Using ${TEMP_EDIT} as editor"
                $TEMP_EDIT /etc/hosts && echo "* Successfully edited /etc/hosts"
                lookupd -flushcache && echo "* Flushed local DNS cache"
        else
                echo "Usage: edithosts [editor]"
                echo "(The editor is optional, and defaults to \$EDITOR)"
        fi
        unset TEMP_EDIT
}

More simply, you can just flush the DNS cache manually with:

lookupd -flushcache