After tiresomely testing the config – I eventually got it to work.

Once you know how it’s really easy but I kept getting a “502 Bad Gateway” error that confused me.

Benefits of sockets over TCP:

• Faster connection over sockets than TCP; 20% boost
• More secure as sockets are harder to break their permissions

Anyway, here’s what you need to do. All config locations are the defaults installed by Debian Squeeze.

Add Dotdeb’s sources in your Debian /etc/apt/source.list

## PHP5-FPM
deb http://packages.dotdeb.org stable all
deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org stable all

Then install php5-fpm:

apt-get update
apt-get install php5-fpm

Change the settings in /etc/php5/fpm/php-fpm.conf

pid = /var/run/php5-fpm.pid
error_log = /var/log/php5-fpm.log
daemonize = yes
include=/etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/*.conf

Recommended settings in /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

;listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock

listen.owner = www-data
listen.group = www-data
listen.mode = 0666

user = www-data
group = www-data

php_flag[display_errors] = off
php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/fpm-php.www.log
php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on
php_admin_value[error_reporting] = 0
php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 128M
php_admin_value[date.timezone] = Europe/London

Start/Restart Nginx and PHP5-FPM and voila

/etc/init.d/nginx restart
/etc/init.d/php5-fpm start

Everything should be running smoothly. Enjoy your new faster server!

Thanks to the people below who wrote about it first.

• http://www.kutukupret.com/2010/10/26/how-to-make-php-fpm-listen-on-both-tcp-and-unix-socket/
• http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-php-5.3-nginx-and-php-fpm-on-ubuntu-debian
• http://norbyit.se/blog/2011/01/configuring-php-fpm/
• http://andreas-lehr.com/blog/archives/491-nginx-wordpress-php-fpm-on-debian-squeeze.html
• http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1025286
• http://www.kutukupret.com/2010/10/26/how-to-make-php-fpm-listen-on-both-tcp-and-unix-socket/