Webrick works fine but lighttpd breaks on the most simple is

I’ve spent four hours trolling google search results and have scoured
my own logs and can find nothing.

Until recently I used Webrick for all my http server needs. Now I’m
going live to the outside world. So I download lighttpd-1.4.13.tar.gz
and perform ./configure and make install. I add /usr/local/sbin (where
lighttpd lives now) and I’m done. Fastcgi is built-in so I install no
other stuff.

I go to the top level of my ROR app (/home/smiller/beamon-erp) and
perform: script/server

Since lighttpd is on path it runs it instead of webrick. Realizing
there’s no lighttpd.conf in my config directly, it copies one in from
/usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.1.6/configs/lighttpd.conf and
then is off and running just fine.

I start my browser (firefox on RH linux) to localhost:3000 and I
immediately get this error:


no such file to load – app/helpers/content_helper

RAILS_ROOT: /home/smiller/beamon-erp/public/…/config/…

This error occured while loading the following files:
application.rb
app/helpers/content_helper

And yet, if I run webrick, instead of lighttpd, it works without a
scintila of a problem. Furthermore, there’s no question but that
app/helpers/content_helper exists relative to the RAILS_ROOT:

ls -lad
/home/smiller/beamon-erp/public/…/config/…/app/helpers/content_helper.rb

-rw------- 1 smiller smiller 16928 Dec 18 18:50
/home/smiller/beamon-erp/public/…/config/…/app/helpers/content_helper.rb

Of course I had to add a trailing / to make the path right i.e. the
RAILS_ROOT needs a trailing / so that merely appending
app/helpers/content_helper[.rb] gives the correct path.

I suspect something more, likely-simple. What on earth is going on? The
development log does not report an errno value so I don’t really know
why content_helper.rb isn’t found.

HELP!