Archive deployment

This guide runs Fast-Https straight from a .tar.gz archive, without installing a package. .tar.gz is a common Linux compressed format: unpacking it gives you the program and its configuration directly, with no package manager involved, so it works on any distribution. For other methods, see CentOS 7 installation and deployment and Install on Ubuntu.

Before you start

• Run every command in the server’s terminal with administrative rights. Log in as root, or prefix commands with sudo.
• The default site uses ports 80 and 443. On a cloud server, allow both in the console first and make sure no other program occupies them — step 2 shows how to check.
• Download fast-https_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz from Gitee Releases or GitHub Releases; use the latest version shown on that page.

1 Download and unpack

The block below creates directories, downloads, unpacks and makes the binary executable. VER is the latest tag from the releases page; mkdir -p creates directories, tar -xzf unpacks and chmod 755 grants execute permission:

mkdir -p /soft /usr/local/fasthttps
cd /soft
VER=v1.6.0
wget "https://gitee.com/ncepu-bj/fast-https/releases/download/$VER/fast-https_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz"
ls -lh fast-https_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz
tar -xzf fast-https_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz -C /usr/local/fasthttps
chmod 755 /usr/local/fasthttps/fast-https
ls -la /usr/local/fasthttps

The final ls should show fast-https, config, httpdoc and the rest — that confirms the unpacking worked.

Run ./fast-https config path to print the resolved configuration, certificate, log and pid paths. The pid file records the process ID.

2 Check configuration and ports

cat /usr/local/fasthttps/config/conf.d/default.json
ss -lntp | grep -E ':(80|443)\b'

The first command prints the default site configuration: listen is the port (80 for HTTP, 443 for HTTPS and HTTP/2), server_name is the hostname the site responds to (localhost by default), and root is the directory holding the homepage.

The second checks the ports. No output means 80 / 443 are free; any output means another program occupies them, so change listen in the configuration or stop that program first.

For a public deployment, set server_name to the domain or IP clients will use and allow the required ports in the firewall and cloud security group. security.host_check is off in the main configuration, so requests are not restricted by Host.

3 Start the server

cd /usr/local/fasthttps
./fast-https start

The ./ prefix means “this program in the current directory” and must not be omitted. You must also cd into the unpack directory first: paths such as ./conf.d and ./httpdoc/root in the configuration are relative to the current working directory.

start daemonizes on its own, so no & or nohup is needed. The first start generates a local CA and site certificate under config/cert/, writes fast-https.pid, and sends logs to logs/ (daemon.log, access.log, system.log, error.log, safe.log).

Common subcommands: start, stop, status, reload to reapply configuration, config path, site to manage site files, acme to configure certificate issuance, and version. Run ./fast-https --help for the full list.

4 Verify the default site

./fast-https status
curl -sS -o /dev/null -w 'HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/
curl -sk -o /dev/null -w 'HTTPS %{http_code} TLS=%{ssl_verify_result}\n' https://localhost/

status should report the service running with its process ID; both curl commands should return 200 (success). -k skips verification of the self-signed certificate and TLS=0 indicates the TLS connection itself is healthy.

On a cloud server, open http://<server public IP>/ in a browser on your own computer to see the default homepage; localhost refers to the server itself and will not work from your computer. A browser warning about an untrusted certificate is expected; use a certificate matching your domain for a public service.

5 Stop and reload

cd /usr/local/fasthttps
./fast-https reload
./fast-https stop

reload reapplies configuration after an edit; stop terminates the process, removes the pid file and releases ports 80 / 443. After that, status reports that the service is not running.

6 Register a systemd unit (optional)

The archive contains no service file, so it does not start at boot by default. To start automatically on boot and restart after a crash, register a systemd unit. systemd is the component that manages background services on Linux; a unit is a text file describing how to start a program, and systemctl is the command used to control it.

Run this block to create the unit file (copy it as a whole; you can also write the same content with an editor into /etc/systemd/system/fast-https.service):

cat > /etc/systemd/system/fast-https.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Fast-Https (archive deployment)
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/fasthttps
Environment=FASTHTTPS_FOREGROUND=1
ExecStart=/usr/local/fasthttps/fast-https start
ExecReload=/usr/local/fasthttps/fast-https reload
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=2s
LimitNOFILE=65535

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

Three details must be correct:

• WorkingDirectory has to be the unpack directory, because relative paths such as ./conf.d, ./httpdoc/root and ./cert are resolved against it.
• ExecStart / ExecReload must point at the actual fast-https path in that directory.
• FASTHTTPS_FOREGROUND=1 is required. On Linux, start daemonizes by default, while systemd’s Type=simple needs the program to stay in the foreground. Without this line the main process exits immediately, the service shows inactive and no port is opened.

Register and start it:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable --now fast-https.service
systemctl is-active fast-https.service

daemon-reload makes systemd re-read the new unit, enable --now starts it and enables it at boot, and is-active printing active confirms success.

Afterwards use systemctl status fast-https.service --no-pager to inspect it, systemctl reload fast-https.service to reapply configuration, systemctl disable --now fast-https.service to stop it and disable startup at boot, and journalctl -u fast-https.service -n 30 --no-pager to read logs.

If Fast-Https was already installed from the .rpm package or the .deb package, a fast-https.service of the same name already exists — remove that package first or choose a different unit name.

7 Troubleshooting

Next steps

The default site only confirms the deployment. To publish your own site or configure a reverse proxy, see the Tutorials section in the sidebar.