Implementing Lighttpd for Webhooks on Raspberry Pi as an alternative to Nginx.

[clriis]

Background.

I run a headless Raspberry Pi 4 ('Bookworm') box with SMB fileserver, VPN gateway, Pi-hole with local DNS and OneDrive sync.

For about two years I have, to my satisfaction, been using Abraunegg/onedrive as my OneDrive sync solution, configured for periodic sync.

The need for instant sync then arose with a project and I took a closer look at utilizing 'webhooks'.

As I already got a Lighttpd web-server running with the Pi-hole package, I explored the option of using this, instead of the Nginx solution, prescribed in the documentation.

It proved to be quite simple, effective and stable and I would like to share the findings.

Prerequisites.

A Raspberry Pi installation with Abraunegg/onedrive and Pi-hole installed (Official Debian Package) or alternatively Lighttpd only.

In your router make a port forwarding of HTTPS (port 443/TCP) to the private IP of the box you are installing to.

If you are using UFW on your box, you should also open port 443/TCP: # sudo ufw allow HTTPS/TCP

A public IP address and domain name (if you don't have a static public IP address and/or a domain name, you can use one of several free services for a dynamic solution: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-best-dynamic-dns-providers-can-lookup-free-today/).

SSL certificate for the Lighttpd installation. Here you can follow steps 1-6 of Cyberciti's guide: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-configure-lighttpd-web-server-with-free-lets-encrypt-ssl-certificate-on-debian-or-ubuntu-linux/ (I could not get steps 7-9 working on my system and thus implemented an alternative as per below).
Additionally you may find that the issuing end-servers are busy. I solved this by including '--server letsencrypt' in the step 6 command:
# acme.sh --server letsencrypt --issue -w /var/www/html -d www.cyberciti.biz -k 4096
You should also include this switch in the crontab job that is automatically added for renewal of the certificate.

Configuring Lighttpd.

When logged in as root, make a backup of the original configuration file:

# cp /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf.orig

Make the ^/webhooks/onedrive directories in the www root:

# mkdir -p /var/www/html/webhooks/onedrive

Then edit the /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf file as follows:

Activate modules:

In the top section (server.modules) insert this:

"mod_proxy",
"mod_dirlisting",
"mod_staticfile",
"mod_openssl"

Make SSL communication with OneDrive:

Insert this snippet at the bottom of the file, replacing 'my.public.domain' with you own domain name:

# proxy for webhooks/onedrive

$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/webhooks/onedrive" {
    proxy.server  = ( "" => (
        ( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8888 )
    ))
}

$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" {
    ssl.engine = "enable"
    ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/my.public.domain/ssl.pem"
}

$HTTP["scheme"] == "http" {
    $HTTP["host"] =~ ".*" {
        url.redirect = (".*" => "https://%0$0")
    }
}

Save the file and exit root.

Restart Lighttpd

# sudo service lighttpd restart

Reconfigure Abraunegg/onedrive.

uncomment the 'webhooks_enabled' line in your onedrive.conf file and change the value to "true"
uncomment the 'webhook_public_url' line and add your domain name

Restart onedrive or reboot

At the end of your Abraunegg/onedrive logfile you should now see something like this:

2024-Apr-05 09:08:11.7307377	Configuring Global Azure AD Endpoints
2024-Apr-05 09:08:13.169382	Initializing the Synchronization Engine ...
2024-Apr-05 09:08:13.1721476	Initializing monitor ...
2024-Apr-05 09:08:13.1723705	OneDrive monitor interval (seconds): 7200
2024-Apr-05 09:08:13.3916503	Initializing subscription for updates ...

With the last line:

Initializing subscription for updates ...

Indicating that instant updates has been successfully implemented

[abraunegg]

@clriis
Awesome write-up - thankyou :)