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/

Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list to include the following lines:

deb http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ squeeze nginx
deb-src http://nginx.org/packages/debian/ squeeze nginx

Then run `apt-get update` and `apt-get upgrade`.

Follow the on-screen instructions and BOOM! You’re running the latest version of Nginx! My preference is to use Nginx these days instead of Apache2 purely because of the extra performance you gain out of it. Much higher requests per second (rpp).

I highly recommend trying it if you haven’t already.

HowTo Forge is website that provides pre-compiled virtual images of (pretty much) every UNIX platform already configured for you.

It also has tutorials on how to do the tweaks yourself with download links to the complete image. It’s really cool if you’re not a Unix guru as they are designed to be secure and efficient with minimal setup knowledge.

Personally I like using Debian for my web servers, but they do have The Perfect Server Setup for Ubuntu with the latest build of Ubuntu 8.10.

They also have The Perfect Desktop Setup for Ubuntu (no image) with step by step instructions and screenshots.

I love reading the useful tips within the tutorials, absorbing the information on how to configure the best web server setups while expanding my knowledge of Unix.