FastCGI Process Manager

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FastCGI Process Manager:

FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) is another method of installing PHP with extra features. It is mostly useful for heavy-loaded sites. 

The important features are: 

• advanced process management with graceful stop/start; 
• ability to start workers with different uid/gid/chroot/environment, listening on different ports and using different php.ini (replaces safe_mode); 
• 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/static child spawning;
• basic SAPI status info (similar to Apache mod_status); 
• php.ini-based config file.

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