Ubuntu Nginx PHP5-FPM UNIX Socket Configuration

Some Extra Steps Needed to Perform in Ubuntu for the Right Nginx PHP5-FPM UNIX Socket Configuration. Else You’ll Face Random 502, 504 Error. There are important parts of many Free Software has been patched, PHP5-FPM is one of them. We described how to fix the PHP5-FPM restart issue, in a separate GitHub project, but honestly; Ubuntu Nginx PHP5-FPM UNIX socket configuration is more difficult to fix by a new user. It will unfortunately give Nginx related error, WP-Cron related errors etc. We have a small list of HTTP Error Codes.

Errors Related To Wrong Ubuntu Nginx PHP5-FPM UNIX Socket Configuration

Normally, UNIX Socket is preferred over TCP/IP for faster end result. Errors can be like :

connect() to unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock failed
upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out)
connect() to unix:/tmp/php5-fpm.sock failed ( : No such file or directory)

It is basically not even possible to list the number of different type of errors. You have the everything right, these errors are relatively newer and related to modified materials for increasing security after fix of those shell shock, Heartbleed etc. deb Linux unfortunately throws more errors.

Ubuntu Nginx PHP5-FPM UNIX Socket Configuration : Does Socket Exits?

There are reasons to upgrade PHP 5.5.9 to 5.6. Although, our method will solve your issue with 95% warranty. Run php -v and you will get this kind of output :

This is PHP 5.5.9 from Ubuntu’s “natural” repo. Normally, we edit this PHP-FPM pool config file :

and add / make this active socket active :

instead of TCP/IP port :

In the Nginx configuration file, we pass in this way :

Errors starts to throw on the fronted and in log file. This happens due to two reasons in combination – improper permission, wrong user-group of nginx and non-existing UNIX socket file. WordPress like software will give you another gift – wp-cron related error. OwnCloud will give APC related error. 95% will be covered if we fix 5 stuffs.

UNIX socket, unfortunately needs to be created. Editing the /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf file to make php5-fpm.sock active, in practical never works. Various complex errors become apparent with PHP-MySQL fronted Apps and their Plugins/Modules.

Checking the UNIX Socket Configuration

Your /etc/php5/fpm/php-fpm.conf should look like this :

Secondly, you should have a file named php5-fpm.conf at /etc/nginx/conf.d containing this :

Usually it never exists. In that case, do these :

Save it and chown the directory :

But, nginx is not of www-data user group. We should add :

These solves many things, but wait.

Editing /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

It is a challenge to edit /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf due to hundreds of commented out lines. This is what we are giving you is a fail safe set for chronic patient server :

These settings will never make your 4GB instance blazing fast, but it will be stable.

Restart and Reboot the Services

After the reboot, reload the configurations and start them :

Check /var/log/nginx for Errors

cd to :

Copy & Paste the error to your computer and then empty the error.log file :

Now, you’ll wait like a real cat and run cat error.log every 5-6 mins for few times. With a normal website with visitors, if error has to arrive, it should show up. For WordPress, errors are due to wp-cron and for OwnCloud it is related to APC.

Nginx public directory is usually here :

/usr/share/nginx/html/

wp-cron.php and wp-config.php will be here :

/usr/share/nginx/html/wp-cron.php

You’ll disable this PHP chron from wp-config.php file :

and add a real cron :

This is PHP-CLI setup for running that wp-cron.php every 15 minutes. It possibly has to do something with W3 Total Cache. You can decrease the time to 1 or 2 minute depending on load average and top.

For OwnCloud, you will need another thing :

Obviously, restart the services – service php5-fpm restart && service nginx restart.