FastCGI Process Manager (FPM)

Table of Contents

FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) is a primary PHP FastCGI implementation containing some features (mostly) useful for heavy-loaded sites.

These features include:

  • advanced process management with graceful stop/start;

  • pools that give ability to start workers with different uid/gid/chroot/environment, listening on different ports and using different php.ini (replaces safe_mode);

  • configurable stdout and stderr logging;

  • emergency restart in case of accidental opcode cache destruction;

  • accelerated upload support;

  • "slowlog" - logging scripts (not just their names, but their PHP backtraces too, using ptrace and similar things to read remote process' execute_data) that are executed unusually slow;

  • fastcgi_finish_request() - special function to finish request and flush all data while continuing to do something time-consuming (video converting, stats processing etc.);

  • dynamic/ondemand/static child spawning;

  • basic and extended status info (similar to Apache mod_status) with various formats like json, xml and openmetrics supported;

  • php.ini-based config file.

add a note

User Contributed Notes 11 notes

up
21
ganlvtech at qq dot com
6 years ago
php-fpm is not avaliable on Windows, but you can use IIS or Apache as the "fastcgi process manager".

If you have to use Nginx, here is a solution. Nginx provides a load balancing module. We can distribute the request to different php-cgi.exe process.

<http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/load_balancing.html>
<http://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_upstream_module.html>

This is the origin nginx conf.
```
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri = 404;
fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi.conf;
}
```

You can replace it by
```
upstream php {
server 127.0.0.1:9000;
server 127.0.0.1:9001;
server 127.0.0.1:9002;
server 127.0.0.1:9003;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri = 404;
fastcgi_pass php;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi.conf;
}
```

CAUTION!!

php-cgi.exe process will die after several requests, so you have to restart the php-cgi.exe manually to keep a process listening the port.

DON'T USE THIS SOLUTION IN PRODUCTION!!
up
19
kokushibyou at gmail dot com
11 years ago
PHP-FPM is FAST - but be wary of using it while your code base is stored on NFS - under average load your NFS server will feel some serious strain. I have yet to find a work around for this bug: https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=52312
up
14
info at f1-outsourcing dot eu
5 years ago
It looks like the php-fpm daemon is not able to use its groups it is running with.

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=77837
up
18
joel k
13 years ago
the fpm process supports the USER2 signal, which is used to reload the config file.

kill -USR2 [pid]

should do the trick.
up
15
dreamcat4 at gmail dot com
10 years ago
Doesn't work? Enable logging!

The php-fpm.log file is a great place to fault-find errors and get to the bottom of a problem. But be sure to enable logging for your specific worker pool. Or you won't see anything!

Example:

To enable error logging for the default [www] worker pool, add this line in the [www] section of your php-fpm.conf:

[www]
catch_workers_output = yes
up
18
robin at robinwinslow dot co dot uk
13 years ago
Init script setup
===

You will probably want to create an init script for your new php-fpm. Fortunately, PHP 5.3.3 provides one for you, which you should copy to your init directory and change permissions:

$ cp <php-5.3.3-source-dir>/sapi/fpm/init.d.php-fpm.in /etc/init.d/php-fpm
$ chmod 755 /etc/init.d/php-fpm

It requires a certain amount of setup. First of all, make sure your php-fpm.conf file is set up to create a PID file when php-fpm starts. E.g.:
----
pid = /var/run/php-fpm.pid
----
(also make sure your php-fpm user has permission to create this file).

Now open up your new init script (/etc/init.d/php-fpm) and set the variables at the top to their relevant values. E.g.:
---
prefix=
exec_prefix=
php_fpm_BIN=/sbin/php-fpm
php_fpm_CONF=/etc/php-fpm.conf
php_fpm_PID=/var/run/php-fpm.pid
---

Your init script is now ready. You should now be able to start, stop and reload php-fpm:

$ /etc/init.d/php-fpm start
$ /etc/init.d/php-fpm stop
$ /etc/init.d/php-fpm reload

The one remaining thing you may wish to do is to add your new php-fpm init script to system start-up. E.g. in CentOS:

$ /sbin/chkconfig php-fpm on

===========

Disclaimer: Although I did just do this on my own server about 20 mins ago, everything I've written here is off the top of my head, so it may not be 100% correct. Also, allow for differences in system setup. Some understanding of what you are doing is assumed.
up
13
user at NOSPAM dot example dot com
7 years ago
It is important to note that FPM is not built with the windows binaries. Many of the guides you may find online rely on php-cgi.exe. Unfortunately they call it FPM but this is incorrect!

The executable php-cgi.exe that is bundled with the windows binaries is a FastCGI interface but it is *not* FPM (Fastcgi Process Manager). php-cgi.exe does not have multi-threading or concurrent request support, nor support for any of the FPM configuration options.

The only solid information I've gathered into why FPM is not available is a bug report explaining that FPM is built around fork(), which is not natively available on windows (https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=62447).
up
9
ikrabbe dot ask at gmail dot com
6 years ago
I'm very unhappy with the way php-fpm handles requests.
There isn't even some SCRIPT_FILENAME in the RFC for CGI, an that's the only standard I found to handle the requests.

Actually what you are doing with PATH_TRANSLATED is supposed to translate to the path, which is broken by media wikis, as they use the PATH_INFO to find the ressource, not some script.

In the original CGI context, the PATH_INFO is passed to the CGI binary to specify some ressource argument. So actually

SCRIPT_NAME ~ argv0
PATH_INFO ~ argv1

in command context.

Conclusion: We should rewrite php-fpm to obey the rfc3875 CGI standard.
Having SCRIPT_NAME pointing to /something.php, must translate to

CWD/something.php

CWD is the working directory where php-fpm is started (or configured to change to).

In case of chroot CWD = "".

In any case the SCRIPT_NAME php script can be found with ./SCRIPT_NAME, from the CWD. So the undocumented not standardized SCRIPT_FILENAME should vanish! It breaks the CGI standard.
up
2
&#34;atesin&#34; at the free google mail service
11 months ago
in response to "ikrabbe dot ask at gmail dot com" about SCRIPT_NAME and PATH_INFO being empty, this could be related...

while configuring php-fpm with nginx in debian (actually raspberry pi), a comment line in .conf grabbed my attention

there is a "feature" (that looks more like a bug) reported about 10 years ago in http://trac.nginx.org/nginx/ticket/321 ... in which "try_files" could reset the contents of $fastcgi_script_name and $fastcgi_path_info ... this is a workaround mentioned in forums by user "zakaria"

<?php /* not actual php code but nginx .conf */
location ~ [^/]\.php(/|$)
{
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+?\.php)(/.*)$;
# Save the $fastcgi_path_info before try_files clear it
set $path_info $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $path_info;
try_files $fastcgi_script_name =404;

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include
fastcgi_params;
}
?>
up
2
jpmkn.iki.fi
1 year ago
@ ikrabbe you might want to look at mod_rewrite to address the environment variable variation(!) between cgi and cli php.
up
-1
&#34;atesin&#34; at the free google mail service
11 months ago
in response to "dreamcat4 at gmail dot com" about enabling logs in php-fpm

i *hate* going blind, so enabling logs is generally the first thing i do...

by doing dreamcat4 suggestion, logs got enabled but mixed with php process logs ... instead doing that and to isolate logs from [www] worker pool in its own file, these directives worked for me in "www" worker .ini file (you have to set directories and permissions before)

php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on
php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log
To Top