There is at the meanwhile a lighttpd debian package available, which includes a rc-script for a handy use. Who want to install the server from source have to take the Suse or RedHat rc-script as skeleton to write a own Debian startup script. I've done this and want to share the little script with you. There is a little difference to the other startup scripts. The debian one offers the possibility to "rotate" the access-log. Rotate is maybe the wrong word, let's say "free", because it only moves the old log to a different place and reopens the logfile by sending SIGHUP to the server.
You can easily copy the directly from here and save it as rc.lighttpd.debian:
#! /bin/sh
# Debian startup script for lighttpd webserver
#
# Author: Robert Eisele ( https://raw.org/ )
# Source: https://raw.org/article/debian-lighttpd-startup-script/
#
LIGHTTPD_BIN=/usr/local/sbin/lighttpd
test -x $LIGHTTPD_BIN || exit 5
LIGHTTPD_CONFIG=/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
test -r $LIGHTTPD_CONFIG || exit 6
LIGHTTPD_PIDFILE=/var/run/lighttpd.pid
LIGHTTPD_LOGFILE=/var/log/lighttpd/access.log
case "$1" in
start)
echo "Starting lighttpd"
$LIGHTTPD_BIN -f $LIGHTTPD_CONFIG
;;
stop)
echo "Shutting down lighttpd"
kill `cat $LIGHTTPD_PIDFILE`
;;
restart)
$0 stop
sleep 1
$0 start
;;
force-reload|reload)
echo "Reload service lighttpd"
kill -INT `cat $LIGHTTPD_PIDFILE`
$0 start
touch $LIGHTTPD_PIDFILE
;;
rotate)
echo "Rotate logfile of lighttpd"
mv $LIGHTTPD_LOGFILE /tmp/`date +%D`.log
kill -HUP `cat $LIGHTTPD_PIDFILE`
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart|force-reload|reload|rotate}"
exit 1
;;
esac
If you have a copy of the script on your hard drive, move it to /etc/init.d and add the execute right with chmod +x /etc/init.d/lighttpd.