WD MyBook Hacks - Built-in Webserver

Apparently the white light version of MBWE broke up with lighttpd, and hooked up with mini_httpd. Reason for this is unknown for me, one thing is sure however: If you want to be on the safe side and use the web-based admin interface, it is better to live with it. I do believe that other http servers can be installed, including:

~#: ipkg list | grep httpd

lighttpd - 1.4.25-1 - A fast webserver with minimal memory footprint.
minihttpd - 1.19-2 - small HTTP server
nostromo - 1.9-1 - nhttpd is a simple, fast and secure HTTP server.
php-thttpd - 2.25b-5.2.12-1 - php-thttpd is thttpd webserver with php support
thttpd - 2.25b-5 - thttpd is a lightweight http server

Each has a separate way to configure, the only thing that has to be made sure is that it binds to a different port than the default 80. Or, even better the admin interface can be removed from port 80, by using -p command-line parameter discussed later on.

Anyhow, at the moment we deal with the mini_httpd:

~#: ps ax | grep http

 2566 root        832 S < /usr/sbin/mini_httpd -d /proto/SxM_webui -c **.mp3|**
16981 root        584 S   grep http

which tells us that the served directory is /proto/SxM_webui. This means that additional files or directories created there will be served as well by the daemon so it is suitable for share simple things not including password protection, virtual hosts and so on...

In fact, I did not find any reasonable online manual page for mini_httpd, yet its basic features are easy to find:

~#: mini_httpd --help

usage:  mini_httpd [-C configfile] [-D] [-S] [-E certfile] [-Y cipher] [-p port] [-d dir] [-dd data_dir] [-c cgipat] [-u user] [-h hostname] [-r] [-v] [-l logfile] [-i pidfile] [-T charset] [-P P3P] [-M maxage] [-maxproc max_concurrent_procs]

On my system /etc/init.d/S55mini_httpd starts the server with the following syntax:

/bin/nice -n -20 \
    /usr/sbin/mini_httpd \
    -d $WEBROOT \
    -c "**.mp3|**.m4a|**.mp4|**.mov|**.pdf|**.wma|**.m4v|**.php|**.cgi" \
    -u root \
    -l /var/log/mini_httpd.log \
    -i /var/run/mini_httpd.pid \
    -maxproc 16 \
    -p $HTTP_PORT

with $WEBROOT being just as above and $HTTP_PORT = "80".