Configuration

FPM uses php.ini syntax for its configuration file - php-fpm.conf, and pool configuration files.

List of global php-fpm.conf directives

pid string

Path to PID file. Default value: none.

error_log string

Path to error log file. Default value: #INSTALL_PREFIX#/log/php-fpm.log.

log_level string

Error log level. Possible values: alert, error, warning, notice, debug. Default value: notice.

emergency_restart_threshold int

If this number of child processes exit with SIGSEGV or SIGBUS within the time interval set by emergency_restart_interval then FPM will restart. A value of 0 means 'Off'. Default value: 0 (Off).

emergency_restart_interval mixed

Interval of time used by emergency_restart_interval to determine when a graceful restart will be initiated. This can be useful to work around accidental corruptions in an accelerator's shared memory. Available Units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays). Default Unit: seconds. Default value: 0 (Off).

process_control_timeout mixed

Time limit for child processes to wait for a reaction on signals from master. Available units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays) Default Unit: seconds. Default value: 0.

daemonize boolean

Send FPM to background. Set to 'no' to keep FPM in foreground for debugging. Default value: yes.

List of pool directives

With FPM you can run several pools of processes with different setting. These are settings that can be tweaked per pool.

listen string

The address on which to accept FastCGI requests. Valid syntaxes are: 'ip.add.re.ss:port', 'port', '/path/to/unix/socket'. This option is mandatory for each pool.

listen.backlog int

Set listen(2) backlog. A value of '-1' means unlimited. Default value: -1.

listen.allowed_clients string

List of ipv4 addresses of FastCGI clients which are allowed to connect. Equivalent to the FCGI_WEB_SERVER_ADDRS environment variable in the original PHP FastCGI (5.2.2+). Makes sense only with a tcp listening socket. Each address must be separated by a comma. If this value is left blank, connections will be accepted from any ip address. Default value: any.

listen.owner string

Set permissions for unix socket, if one is used. In Linux, read/write permissions must be set in order to allow connections from a web server. Many BSD-derived systems allow connections regardless of permissions. Default values: user and group are set as the running user, mode is set to 0666.

listen.group string

See listen.owner.

listen.mode string

See listen.owner.

user string

Unix user of FPM processes. This option is mandatory.

group string

Unix group of FPM processes. If not set, the default user's group is used.

pm string

Choose how the process manager will control the number of child processes. Possible values: static, ondemand, dynamic. This option is mandatory.

static - the number of child processes is fixed (pm.max_children).

ondemand - the processes spawn on demand (when requested, as opposed to dynamic, where pm.start_servers are started when the service is started.

dynamic - the number of child processes is set dynamically based on the following directives: pm.max_children, pm.start_servers, pm.min_spare_servers, pm.max_spare_servers.

pm.max_children int

The number of child processes to be created when pm is set to static and the maximum number of child processes to be created when pm is set to dynamic. This option is mandatory.

This option sets the limit on the number of simultaneous requests that will be served. Equivalent to the ApacheMaxClients directive with mpm_prefork and to the PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN environment variable in the original PHP FastCGI.

pm.start_servers int

The number of child processes created on startup. Used only when pm is set to dynamic. Default Value: min_spare_servers + (max_spare_servers - min_spare_servers) / 2.

pm.min_spare_servers int

The desired minimum number of idle server processes. Used only when pm is set to dynamic. Also mandatory in this case.

pm.max_spare_servers int

The desired maximum number of idle server processes. Used only when pm is set to dynamic. Also mandatory in this case.

pm.max_requests int

The number of requests each child process should execute before respawning. This can be useful to work around memory leaks in 3rd party libraries. For endless request processing specify '0'. Equivalent to PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS. Default value: 0.

pm.status_path string

The URI to view the FPM status page. If this value is not set, no URI will be recognized as a status page. Default value: none.

ping.path string

The ping URI to call the monitoring page of FPM. If this value is not set, no URI will be recognized as a ping page. This could be used to test from outside that FPM is alive and responding. Please note that the value must start with a leading slash (/).

ping.response string

This directive may be used to customize the response to a ping request. The response is formatted as text/plain with a 200 response code. Default value: pong.

request_terminate_timeout mixed

The timeout for serving a single request after which the worker process will be killed. This option should be used when the 'max_execution_time' ini option does not stop script execution for some reason. A value of '0' means 'Off'. Available units: s(econds)(default), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays). Default value: 0.

request_slowlog_timeout mixed

The timeout for serving a single request after which a PHP backtrace will be dumped to the 'slowlog' file. A value of '0' means 'Off'. Available units: s(econds)(default), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays). Default value: 0.

slowlog string

The log file for slow requests. Default value: #INSTALL_PREFIX#/log/php-fpm.log.slow.

rlimit_files int

Set open file descriptor rlimit. Default value: system defined value.

rlimit_core int

Set max core size rlimit. Possible Values: 'unlimited' or an integer greater or equal to 0. Default value: system defined value.

chroot string

Chroot to this directory at the start. This value must be defined as an absolute path. When this value is not set, chroot is not used.

chdir string

Chdir to this directory at the start. This value must be an absolute path. Default value: current directory or / when chroot.

catch_workers_output boolean

Redirect worker stdout and stderr into main error log. If not set, stdout and stderr will be redirected to /dev/null according to FastCGI specs. Default value: no.

It's possible to pass additional environment variables and update PHP settings of a certain pool. To do this, you need to add the following options to the pool configuration file.

Example #1 Passing environment variables and PHP settings to a pool

env[HOSTNAME] = $HOSTNAME
env[PATH] = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
env[TMP] = /tmp
env[TMPDIR] = /tmp
env[TEMP] = /tmp

php_admin_value[sendmail_path] = /usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i -f www@my.domain.com
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[memory_limit] = 32M
PHP settings passed with php_value or php_flag will overwrite their previous value. Please note that defining disable_functions or disable_classes will not overwrite previously defined php.ini values, but will append the new value instead.

Settings defined with php_admin_value and php_admin_flag cannot be overriden with ini_set.

As of 5.3.3, PHP settings are also possible to be set in webserver.

Example #2 set PHP settings in nginx.conf

set $php_value "pcre.backtrack_limit=424242";
set $php_value "$php_value \n pcre.recursion_limit=99999";
fastcgi_param  PHP_VALUE $php_value;

fastcgi_param  PHP_ADMIN_VALUE "open_basedir=/var/www/htdocs";
Caution

Because these settings are passed to php-fpm as fastcgi headers, php-fpm should not be bound to a worldwide accessible address. Otherwise, anyone could alter the PHP configuration options. See also listen.allowed_clients.