WordPress uses a wad of apache rewrite rules to implement “pretty” URL permalinks, a synthetic hierarchical path interface to the blog. This set of near-equivalents for lighttpd url.rewrite makes WordPress URLs work as discernible paths like tag/lighttpd/, rather than revealing the underlying numerical arguments to index.php.
Replace the example’s /wplt/ with your WordPress base URL (often /):
# Wordpress rewrites transliterated for lighttpd
# tested 1.4.13(debian)
# In /wp-admin|Preferences|Permalinks set format string:
# /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
#
url.rewrite = (
"^/wplt/(wp-|images)/{0,1}(?!no.css)(.*)" => "$0",
"^/wplt/page/([0-9]+)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?paged=$1" ,
"^/wplt/([0-9]+)/?([0-9]+)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?m=$1$2" ,
"^/wplt/([0-9]+)/?([0-9]+)/?([0-9]+)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?m=$1$2$3" ,
"^/wplt/([0-9]+)/?([0-9]+)/?([0-9]+)/?(.*)$" => "/wplt/index.php?m=$1$2$3$4" ,
"^/wplt/(.+)/([0-9]+)/[^/]+/?/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&p=$2&feed=$3",
"^/wplt/(.+)/([0-9]+)/[^/]+/?/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&p=$2&feed=$3",
"^/wplt/(.+)/([0-9]+)/[^/]+/?/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?(.*)$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&p=$2&paged=$3$4" ,
"^/wplt/(.+)/([0-9]+)/[^/]+/?([0-9]+)?/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&p=$2&page=$3" ,
"^/wplt/(.+)/([0-9]+)/[^/]+/?/trackback/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&p=$2&tb=1" ,
"^/wplt/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?feed=$1" ,
"^/wplt/(.+)/feed/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&feed=$2" ,
"^/wplt/(.+)/(feed|rdf|rss|rss2|atom)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1&feed=$2" ,
"^/wplt/category/(.+)/?$" => "/wplt/index.php?category_name=$1" ,
"^/wplt/([_0-9a-zA-Z-]+)/?(.*)$" => "/wplt/index.php?page_id=$1$2" )
(Note that Labs/blogs is running apache httpd as of 2008/02/01, because I found it easier than creating something to generate lighttpd rewrites for wpmu blogs.)