NginX (pronounced “engine x”), is a high performance web server and a reverse proxy server. This server is well-known for its low memory footprint rather than Apache. You can refer here for Nginx vs Apache Performance Benchmark result. Nginx is way too better for Apache.
Popular websites that run on Nginx are SourceForge, WordPress, and Hulu. By making Nginx run in FreeBSD, you can deliver light, efficient, powerful, stable and secure web server in a simple way.
What is PHP? I think you all already know and no need to explain further. The PHP handler we will use is FastCGI Process Manager (FPM), is an alternative PHP FastCGI implementation with some additional features useful for sites of any size, especially busier sites. This setup will surely deliver high-performance web service with low specs hardware.
OS: FreeBSD 8 64bit
Nginx version: 0.8.54
PHP version: 5.3.6
Website: http://mydomain.net/
Website IP: 192.168.60.2
Web directory: /home/mydomain/public_html
1. Lets start by installing Nginx web server:
cd /usr/ports/www/nginx make install clean |
Once installation start, it will prompt nginx module selection page. You can select any Nginx module you want, but for me, I will select following module to be compiled right away:
[X] HTTP_MODULE Enable HTTP module [X] HTTP_ADDITION_MODULE Enable http_addition module [X] HTTP_CACHE_MODULE Enable http_cache module [X] HTTP_DAV_MODULE Enable http_webdav module [X] HTTP_FLV_MODULE Enable http_flv module [X] HTTP_GEOIP_MODULE Enable http_geoip module [X] HTTP_GZIP_STATIC_MODULE Enable http_gzip_static module [X] HTTP_IMAGE_FILTER_MODULE Enable http_image_filter module [X] HTTP_PERL_MODULE Enable http_perl module [X] HTTP_RANDOM_INDEX_MODULE Enable http_random_index module [X] HTTP_REALIP_MODULE Enable http_realip module [X] HTTP_REWRITE_MODULE Enable http_rewrite module [X] HTTP_SECURE_LINK_MODULE Enable http_secure_link module [X] HTTP_SSL_MODULE Enable http_ssl module [X] HTTP_STATUS_MODULE Enable http_stub_status module [X] HTTP_SUB_MODULE Enable http_sub module [X] HTTP_XSLT_MODULE Enable http_xslt module |
If you receive any prompt after that, just accept all values if you want to have a complete setup, or else select what you want, if you know what you are doing.
2. Web server installation done. Make sure Nginx is enabled by adding following line to /etc/rc.conf:
nginx_enable="YES" |
3. Before we configure and start the web server, we need to install PCRE, libtool, PHP with FPM and PHP extensions. Follow these steps:
cd /usr/ports/devel/pcre make install clean cd /usr/ports/devel/libtool make install clean cd /usr/ports/lang/php5 make install clean |
During the selection module page, select FPM (FastCgi Process Manager).
cd /usr/ports/lang/php5-extensions make install clean |
4. Since PHP-FPM is a service, we need to add this in /etc/rc.conf:
php_fpm_enable="YES" |
5. By default, there is no php.ini specified. So we need to copy the php.ini which has been prepared during port installation.
cp /usr/local/etc/php/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php/php.ini |
6. Start the PHP-FPM service :
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/php-fpm start |
7. Now PHP-FPM already started at localhost port 9000. You can check this using netstat command. Lets create the web and logs directory used to host website (ignore this if you already have the directory):
mkdir /home/mydomain/public_html mkdir /home/mydomain/logs |
8. Lets configure Nginx so it know where is the home directory, what is the virtual host name, how to handle PHP and so on. Open the configuration file using text editor located under /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf and make sure following values are not commented (#) or you can copy this example and change to the value you want:
user nobody; worker_processes 1; error_log logs/error.log; pid logs/nginx.pid; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { include mime.types; default_type application/octet-stream; log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" ' '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" ' '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"'; sendfile on; keepalive_timeout 65; gzip on; # We define the virtual host here server { listen 192.168.60.2:80; server_name mydomain.net www.mydomain.net; access_log /home/mydomain/logs/access.log main; location / { root /home/mydomain/public_html; index index.html index.htm index.php; } # Let nginx know how to handle PHP using fastcgi location ~ \.php$ { root html; fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/mydomain/public_html$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } location ~ /\.ht { deny all; } } } |
9. After that, we good to go. But before start Nginx it is good if we check the configuration first:
nginx -t /usr/local/etc/rc.d/nginx start |
10. Now, Nginx and PHP-FPM should run correctly. If you do any changes on php.ini files or php extension file, you can restart PHP-FPM and reload Nginx:
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/php-fpm restart /usr/local/etc/rc.d/nginx reload |
9 thoughts on “FreeBSD: NginX+PHP 5.3 FastCGI (FPM) Installation”
Thanks for this tutorial. it help us much! so surprise by the memory consumption of nginx
Gary
This web post is awesome. Every step worked perfectly without a single squawk! Awesome job on this content! My server is running like a champ! Keep up the good work!
John Galbraith
Thank you, but fyi php.ini-production was not /usr/local/etc/php/php.ini-production for my install, it was /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production.
sam
Thanks for tutorial, i have installed all clearly. but when i’m trying the start nginx; i’m taking this error “the using of regex “\.php$” requires PCRE library in …nginx.conf”
Thanks for advice.
selami
Hi Selami,
You need to install pcre library inside the server. Go to /usr/ports/devel/pcre and run following command:
make install clean
I have made some correction to the post to include installation of pcre
SecaGuy
Hi SecaGuy,
yes i were install pcre, but it’s saying same error,
i’s take a look nginx configuration (“nginx -V”). it have “–without-pcre” parameter.
i think this is my problem, but i don’t know; how can i solve. i’m new for freeBSD also Unix. 😀
i tried /.configure –with-pcre but i can’t do that.
Thanks
selami
Does this also start the two automatically on a reboot?
Nikhil
Yes, because we have put following line into rc.conf:
php_fpm_enable=”YES”
nginx_enable=”YES”
SecaGuy
Thank you for this simple tutorial that enabled me to get up to speed with nginx and some VM hacking.
Peter