- \n
- Caddy is a modern web server (supporting HTTP\/2) with elegant and easy configuration. It comes with automated HTTPS (with Let’s Encrypt<\/a>) and a growing number of extensions (including Git support).<\/li>\n
- It’s open source software, written in Go<\/a>, and driven by an awesome community.<\/li>\n
- Well documented<\/a><\/li>\n
- Cross-platform: available for Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Windows, OpenBSD and Android.<\/li>\n
- All this in just one binary executable!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Caddy](\"https:\/\/denbeke.be\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Caddy-logo-300x65.png\")
<\/a>Caddyfile<\/h2>\nConfiguration for Caddy is done using a Caddyfile<\/em>, which is a new language specifically for Caddy (ok, this seems odd at first sight). But by using a domain specific language, configuration becomes very simpel and to-the-point.<\/p>\n
Caddy is very powerful (and easy at the same time), which I will demonstrate with Caddyfile snippets for some of my real-world situations.<\/p>\n
Configuring Caddy can be very easy for most sites:<\/p>\n
denbeke.be {\r\n root sites\/denbeke.be\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\nLook, I just created the config for a static website with a document root. This site is automatically served over HTTPS, and HTTP traffic is automatically redirected to HTTPS1<\/sup>.<\/p>\n
Dynamic PHP websites are of course also supported. Simply use PHP-FPM as you would do with Nginx:<\/p>\n
denbeke.be {\r\n root sites\/denbeke\r\n fastcgi \/ unix:\/var\/run\/php\/php7.0-fpm.sock php\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\nBut Caddy is not only easy, it comes packed with a lot of features, which support a lot of use cases.<\/p>\n
My personal WordPress blog runs perfectly with only 12 lines of code:<\/p>\n
www.denbeke.be {\r\n redir https:\/\/denbeke.be{uri}\r\n}\r\n\r\ndenbeke.be {\r\n\r\n root sites\/denbeke\r\n log sites\/logs\/denbeke.be.access.log\r\n errors sites\/logs\/denbeke.be.error.log\r\n\r\n fastcgi \/ unix:\/var\/run\/php\/php7.0-fpm.sock php\r\n\r\n # Routing for WordPress\r\n rewrite \/blog {\r\n to {path} {path}\/ \/blog\/index.php?{query}\r\n }\r\n\r\n gzip\r\n header \/blog\/wp-content\/ Cache-Control \"max-age=2592000\"\r\n header \/blog\/wp-includes\/js\/ Cache-Control \"max-age=2592000\"\r\n\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\nI have a redirect from
www.denbeke.be<\/code> todenbeke.be<\/code>, redirect from HTTP to HTTPS (note that non-HTTPS traffic is automatically redirected to HTTPS with Caddy by default1<\/sup>), error and access logging, and PHP with routing for WordPress. I also compress all content with gzip and set caching headers to optimize used bandwidth.<\/p>\nFor my Git server, I have a reverse proxy to Gogs<\/a>. Again, Caddy takes care of HTTPS… The Caddyfile for this is again trivial:<\/p>\n
git.denbeke.be {\r\n proxy \/ http:\/\/localhost:3000\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\nMy last example is the website for a group project, where the complete website is put in a Git repo, so all contributors can edit the website. The following directive will clone the complete repo on initial setup, and pull changes every hour:<\/p>\n
oakstrong.be {\r\n root sites\/oakstrong\r\n git https:\/\/bitbucket.org\/oakstrong\/oakstrong.be.git\r\n}<\/code><\/pre>\nIt’s all very easy, isn’t it?<\/p>\n
And this is just a subset of Caddy’s capabilities, Caddy supports a lot more, like automated Hugo publishing (French blogpost)<\/a>, running Caddy on Android<\/a>, or any other PHP CMS or static site generator. Caddy also has a growing number of add-ons\/modules, which add a variety of features to Caddy, like Prometheus metrics, IP filtering, search, Cross Origin Resource Sharing, JSONP, …<\/p>\n
Running Caddy as a service…<\/h2>\n
… is easy! (and others, including myself, already made configuration files and tutorials about it)<\/p>\n
- \n
- Running Caddy as a service with upstart (Ubuntu <= 14)<\/a><\/li>\n
- Running Caddy as a service with systemd (Ubuntu >= 15)<\/a><\/li>\n
- Running Caddy as a service with rc.d system (FreeBSD)<\/a><\/li>\n
- Running Caddy in a Docker container<\/a><\/li>\n
- Running the Caddy Docker container as a service with systemd<\/a><\/li>\n
- PPA for Ubuntu<\/a> (work in progress)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Caddy in production: rock solid!<\/h2>\n
But have you tried running Caddy in production? Is this new and young web server stable enough? Doesn’t it sometimes crash?
\nSimple answer Yes<\/strong> it’s stable, and No<\/strong> it hasn’t crashed yet.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Pingdom](\"https:\/\/denbeke.be\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Pingdom-Uptime-report-Caddy-webserver-1024x565.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAt the beginning of\u00a0February 2016 I made the switch from Nginx to Caddy (together with the switch from PHP 5 to PHP 7) on my home server and my production server. Two months later Caddy already served thousands of visitors on various websites.2<\/sup> Caddy hasn’t crashed ever since, and I currently have 100% uptime on my production server.3<\/sup><\/p>\n
Does this mean that Caddy is perfect and bug-free? Of course not!
\nI started using Caddy in production after a stupid FastCGI bug was fixed (which caused requests to block). While moving to production I submitted a few pull requests and issues on GitHub to fix some important and\u00a0less important bugs. But I can confirm Caddy now perfectly works with WordPress<\/a>, Piwik, ownCloud<\/a>, Vanilla Forums, SMF, and all self-written PHP stuff.<\/p>\n - Running Caddy as a service with systemd (Ubuntu >= 15)<\/a><\/li>\n
- It’s open source software, written in Go<\/a>, and driven by an awesome community.<\/li>\n