Now this is the most complicated and quite possibly the hardest piece to the setup.
Here is the overwhelming and complicated command set that you will need to enter in order to get NGINX and PHP-FPM installed on your Debian System.
apt-get -t squeeze-backports install nginx-extras; apt-get install php5 php5-fpm php5-common php5-curl php5-dev php5-gd php5-imagick php5-mcrypt php5-memcache php5-mysql php5-pspell php5-snmp php5-sqlite php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl php-pear libssh2-php php5-cli
At this time I create a system user for NGINX.
adduser --system --no-create-home nginx
This command simply creates a system user with no home directory. We will use this User later in our setup.
WOW, that was tough! I know you may be tired, so this is a good time to take a break.
Well now that we have installing NGINX out of the way, we can proceed to setting up NGINX and PHP-FPM to work on your system.
If you are coming from the world of Apache, NGINX will look like Chinese to you. Though you will see that there are some familiar directives and you will see some things that you may recognize. Though I would implore you to go to the
NGINX Wiki and read up on how things are done in NGINX. Essentially, if it does not work right it is because you did it wrong. Now that might sound harsh, but it is the truth. NGINX is stupid simple, and one of the things that I had the hardest time with was realizing that there was no need for complicated nonsense in my setup. NGINX allows you to change the outlook on your web application from complication to simplicity. So like Steve Jobs used to always say, "It just Works."
In NGINX everything that you will need to mess with is in the directory /etc/nginx. So for this part of the guide, please go to the directory /etc/nginx and it is here that we will begin changing the configuration files.
There are several default files that you will have to concern yourself with, and then a few others that I created so that I can use in my deployment of Virtual Hosts.
Default Files
- nginx.conf
- fastcgi_params
Files that I made to simplify my life
Before we go crazy and start deleting files and changing functions I recommend that we make a backup for the core files. Here is how you can do this simply and fast.
tar -czf ~/NGINX_Config.tar.gz nginx.conf fastcgi_params
Here is the nginx.conf that I have setup for my System. You can modify this to fit the needs of your particular environment, but generally speaking this should be good enough for most production systems.
Please Take Notice: In the nginx.conf file shown below, I have 2 ‘includes’ in the # Virtual Host Configs area. These ‘includes’ are so I can have a separate config file directory and separate virtual host file directory. Now these ‘includes’are not necessary, but make life so much simpler. However if you are set in your old ways and would like to have a very long single configuration file similar to the Apache httpd.conf, NGINX can accommodate that too. Essentially everything would be added to the nginx.conf file. However, I highly recommend you start out with good practices and use the applications resources as they have been designed.
user nginx www-data;
worker_processes 4;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;
events {
worker_connections 768;
# multi_accept on;
}
http {
# Basic Settings
sendfile on;
tcp_nopush on;
tcp_nodelay on;
keepalive_timeout 65;
types_hash_max_size 2048;
# server_tokens off;
# server_names_hash_bucket_size 64;
# server_name_in_redirect off;
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
default_type application/octet-stream;
# Logging Settings
log_format gzip '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] '
'"$request" $status $bytes_sent '
'"$http_referer" "$http_user_agent" "$gzip_ratio"';
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log gzip buffer=32k;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log notice;
# Gzip Settings
gzip on;
gzip_disable "msie6";
gzip_vary on;
gzip_proxied any;
gzip_comp_level 6;
gzip_buffers 16 8k;
gzip_http_version 1.1;
gzip_types text/plain text/css application/json application/x-javascript text/xml application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
# Virtual Host Configs
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
}
Here are the fastcgi_params
fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method;
fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type;
fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param REQUEST_URI $request_uri;
fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_URI $document_uri;
fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $document_root;
fastcgi_param SERVER_PROTOCOL $server_protocol;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1;
fastcgi_param SERVER_SOFTWARE nginx/$nginx_version;
fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $remote_addr;
fastcgi_param REMOTE_PORT $remote_port;
fastcgi_param SERVER_ADDR $server_addr;
fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT $server_port;
fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name;
# PHP only, required if PHP was built with --enable-force-cgi-redirect
fastcgi_param REDIRECT_STATUS 200;
Nginx.conf and fastcgi_params are the two basic files that you have to work with in order to setup NGINX. Now here are the custom configs that I added to simplify my life.
First I setup a security file, to fend off some basic annoyances. This is the security file:
## Only requests to our Host are allowed
# if ($host !~ ^($server_name)$ ) {
# return 444;
# }
## Only allow these request methods ##
## Do not accept DELETE, SEARCH and other methods ##
if ($request_method !~ ^(GET|HEAD|POST)$ ) {
return 444;
}
## Deny certain Referers ###
if ( $http_referer ~* (babes|forsale|girl|jewelry|love|nudit|organic|poker|porn|sex|teen) )
{
return 404;
return 403;
}
Next I setup a file for the mail directives that are normally in the nginx.conf file. I place these commented out lines in a mail.conf file in the /etc/nginx/conf.d/ folder and I leave the lines all commented out. I do this so that I could use it in the future if I ever choose to, though I am fairly sure that I wont. Essentially this part is optional and not necessary. The file created is mail.conf and it should be placed in the /etc/nginx/conf.d/ directory.
#mail {
# # See sample authentication script at:
# # http://wiki.nginx.org/ImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript
#
# # auth_http localhost/auth.php;
# # pop3_capabilities "TOP" "USER";
# # imap_capabilities "IMAP4rev1" "UIDPLUS";
#
# server {
# listen localhost:110;
# protocol pop3;
# proxy on;
# }
#
# server {
# listen localhost:143;
# protocol imap;
# proxy on;
# }
#}
Now that you have the basic NGINX configuration out of the way, it is time to setup some Virtual Hosts. In Debian there are two subdirectories located under the /etc/nginx/ directory. These are sites-available and sites-enabled. The functions for these directories are fairly straightforward. One is the place you house your Virtual Hosts, and the other is where the active Virtual Hosts live. Essentially if you are familiar with Apache, this has the same functionality. You have a Virtual Host Config file in the available directory and you either copy or symlink the files from one place to the other. To symlink a Virtual Host config file from one directory to another, enter this command.
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/THE.VIRTUAL.HOST.FILENAME /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/THE.VIRTUAL.HOST.FILENAME
As you build your Virtual Hosts I recommend that you do this from within the directory /etc/nginx/sites-available. While following the instructions for this portion of the guide, please navigate to the /etc/nginx/sites-available directory.
Here is the Virtual Host file that I have setup for instances using PHP.
Replace DOMAINNAME with the "DOMAIN NAME" you want to create a Virtual Host for
server {
server_name www.DOMAINNAME;
rewrite ^(.*) http://DOMAINNAME$1 permanent;
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name DOMAINNAME;
root /var/www/DOMAINNAME/htdocs;
index index.php;
include /etc/nginx/security;
# Logging --
access_log /var/log/nginx/DOMAINNAME.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/DOMAINNAME.error.log notice;
# serve static files directly
location ~* ^.+.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html|xml|txt)$ {
access_log off;
expires max;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
try_files $uri =404;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm/DOMAINNAME.socket;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
}
}
Please review the PHP section of this virtual host template. This is the first reference to using UNIX file sockets for processing PHP.
If you need and or want a Virtual Host that is not using PHP, simply remove the PHP portion of the previous configuration file. That would look like this.
server {
server_name www.DOMAINNAME;
rewrite ^(.*) http://DOMAINNAME$1 permanent;
}
server {
listen 80;
server_name DOMAINNAME;
root /var/www/DOMAINNAME/htdocs;
index index.php;
include /etc/nginx/security;
# Logging --
access_log /var/log/nginx/DOMAINNAME.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/DOMAINNAME.error.log notice;
# serve static files directly
location ~* ^.+.(jpg|jpeg|gif|css|png|js|ico|html|xml|txt)$ {
access_log off;
expires max;
}
}
In these virtual host files you will see that there is a line for root /var/www/DOMAINNAME/htdocs. This line is the location where NGINX will look for the files that you are attempting to serve. You should change this so that the Virtual Host File is pointing to the location where you have placed your files.
Once you are finished with the NGINX Aspect of this deployment, meaning you have replaced your files with the ones I have shown here and then created your virtual hosts, you are now ready to configure PHP-FPM.
Here you are going to simply add some POOL information to the PHP-FPM setup that you have already done. Unknowingly when you entered the command to install PHP-FPM, the system setup a default configuration for PHP-FPM. So most of the heavy lifting has been done for you.
You may have to do one thing and that is to create a directory where you want your Sockets to live while they are alive. I placed them here: /var/run/php5-fpm/ You can use this command to create the directory.
mkdir -p /var/run/php5-fpm/
This directory may already exists by simply installing PHP-FPM. This is the place where your file sockets will exist when online. Once you are sure that this directory exists there is nothing further you will need to do with this directory. Sockets will automatically spawn here provided you are using the virtualhost setup and PHP-FPM pool template provided.
To complete the setup move to the directory /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/. It is here that you will setup the different UNIX Sockets that PHP-FPM will function on.
Please Note: In order for your system to function properly you will need to create a new POOL for every Virtual Host that you had setup.
The pool files should follow this naming convention: YOURDOMAIN.conf
Here is a template for the pool files.
[DOMAINNAME]
listen = /var/run/php5-fpm/DOMAINNAME.socket
listen.backlog = -1
; Unix user/group of processes
user = (THE USERNAME OF THE USER THAT OWNS THE SITE FILES)
group = www-data
; Choose how the process manager will control the number of child processes.
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 75
pm.start_servers = 10
pm.min_spare_servers = 5
pm.max_spare_servers = 20
pm.max_requests = 500
; Pass environment variables
env[HOSTNAME] = $HOSTNAME
env[PATH] = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
env[TMP] = /tmp
env[TMPDIR] = /tmp
env[TEMP] = /tmp
; host-specific php ini settings here
; php_admin_value[open_basedir] = /var/www/DOMAINNAME/htdocs:/tmp
Please remember to replace all instances of "DOMAINNAME" with then name of your domain.
Now that you have gone through the whole guide and you have installed and created all of the files needed for your installation, you will need to restart NGINX and PHP-FPM. After you restart both services it will be up and working. You will have NGINX running Fast-CGI with PHP-FPM. Your Installation will be running on all separate UNIX Sockets with separate owners per socket ensuring a more secure environment. Furthermore, your NGINX Setup will be fast and furious. In my own speed tests I’ve conducted, my site running on NGINX vs. My Site Running on Apache, my NGINX site was over 3x faster in both response and action. All while on a small 256MB Virtual Server, which in my opinion is ridiculously awesome!
Here is a quick Command to restart Both NGINX and PHP-FPM
service nginx restart; service php5-fpm restart
If there was no error that popped up, you can now go to your domain that you have setup and you will be running good old NGINX and PHP-FPM.
Enjoy!
Another Note..
Just to reiterate, this works and needs nothing else, you can change things to better suit your environment though there is almost nothing else that you need to get the services up and running. Secondly, I have not conveniently left something out of this document. At more than 2500 words, I think I gave too much insight, though I hope this helps.
I would also like to say Thank you to my fellow Rackers, in particular Patrick Cantu, without our bickering about if this could be done, I would have never thought about doing this nor would I have ever done it. I would also like to say thank you to the people over at DotDeb. You people are what make the Open Source Community a great place to develop. You can read more about DotDeb and their repositories
here.
curtsy: rackspace
