PHP and nginx on Ubuntu: the easy way

I’ve now changed my slice from running lighttpd to nginx. Here’s the simplest way, in around 6 commands, to get PHP up and running via FastCGI.

Install and setup

Install PHP 5:

sudo aptitude install php5-cgi

Install nginx:

sudo aptitude install nginx

Create PHP 5 FastCGI start-up script:

sudo nano /etc/init.d/php-fastcgi

Inside, put:

#!/bin/bash
BIND=127.0.0.1:9000
USER=www-data
PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=15
PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=1000

PHP_CGI=/usr/bin/php-cgi
PHP_CGI_NAME=`basename $PHP_CGI`
PHP_CGI_ARGS="- USER=$USER PATH=/usr/bin PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=$PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=$PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS $PHP_CGI -b $BIND"
RETVAL=0

start() {
      echo -n "Starting PHP FastCGI: "
      start-stop-daemon --quiet --start --background --chuid "$USER" --exec /usr/bin/env -- $PHP_CGI_ARGS
      RETVAL=$?
      echo "$PHP_CGI_NAME."
}
stop() {
      echo -n "Stopping PHP FastCGI: "
      killall -q -w -u $USER $PHP_CGI
      RETVAL=$?
      echo "$PHP_CGI_NAME."
}

case "$1" in
    start)
      start
  ;;
    stop)
      stop
  ;;
    restart)
      stop
      start
  ;;
    *)
      echo "Usage: php-fastcgi {start|stop|restart}"
      exit 1
  ;;
esac
exit $RETVAL

Make start-up script executable:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/php-fastcgi

Launch PHP:

sudo /etc/init.d/php-fastcgi start

Launch at start-up:

sudo update-rc.d php-fastcgi defaults

That’s it. All installed and ready to go.

Test

In your server config, add the following:

location ~ \.php$ {
    fastcgi_pass    127.0.0.1:9000;
    fastcgi_index   index.php;
    fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/nginx-default$fastcgi_script_name;
    include         fastcgi_params;
}

Restart nginx:

sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Create a file in your web root (in the example above, /var/www/nginx-default/test.php):

<?php

phpinfo();

Visit the page in your browser and you should see the standard PHP info page. And you’re done.

Source: Aberration