This is a continuation of the article: Nginx with php@FastCGI support part I

Before starting the nginx configuration, we need to get the following packages: php5, php5-cgi, spawn-cgi; if we want to use a database, e.g. mysql, additionally: php5-mysql, php5-mcrypt. We'll borrow the spawn-cgi application from the lighttpd package.

• first we configure php5-cgi, editing the file /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini
• and set in it: cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
• we download the lighttpd package: wget http://download.lighttpd.net/lighttpd/releases-1.4.x/lighttpd-1.4.26.tar.gz
• we unpack it: tar -xvjf lighttpd-1.4.26.tar.gz , and go into the directory
• ./configure
• we compile with make
• and take what interests us: cp src/spawn-fcgi /usr/bin/spawn-fcgi
• nano /usr/bin/php-fastcgi and paste in:

  
  #!/bin/sh
  /usr/bin/spawn-fcgi -a 127.0.0.1 -p 9000 -C 3 -u www-data -f /usr/bin/php5-cgi
  

  
  where:
  -a - the interface it listens on
  -p - the port it listens on
  -C - the number of processes started
  -u - with what permissions we run the process
  
• next we create a startup script for fastcgi, creating the file /etc/init.d/fastcgi

#!/bin/bash
PHP_SCRIPT=/usr/bin/php-fastcgi
RETVAL=0
case "$1" in
    start)
      $PHP_SCRIPT
      RETVAL=$?
  ;;
    stop)
      killall -9 php5-cgi
      RETVAL=$?
  ;;
    restart)
      killall -9 php5-cgi
      $PHP_SCRIPT
      RETVAL=$?
  ;;
    *)
      echo "Usage: php-fastcgi {start|stop|restart}"
      exit 1
  ;;
esac
exit $RETVAL

• we give it the appropriate permissions: chmod 755 /etc/init.d/fastcgi
• update-rc.d fastcgi defaults 20 (debian, ubuntu, etc.)
That's it as far as PHP via fastcgi goes.

• Now let's move on to configuring nginx itself
Put simply, the difference between a configuration serving static content and one serving dynamic pages lies in the location directive:


       location ~ \.php$ {

                fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
                fastcgi_index  index.php;
                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME our_site_directory$fastcgi_script_name;
                include fastcgi_params;
        }
}

It's worth optimizing the configuration so that only requests requiring "dynamic page" serving reach the PHP interpreter. PHP can also serve static files or images, but nginx will do it faster and at lower cost.
For example:


        location = /images {
        auth_basic off;
        root /var/www/site/images;

  }

        location  / {
               root   /var/www/site;
               index  index.php;

        }
      

        location = /50x.html {
                root   /var/www/nginx-default;
        }


        location ~ \.php$ {

                fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
                fastcgi_index  index.php;
                fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/site$fastcgi_script_name;
                include fastcgi_params;
        }
}