NGINX and PHP-FPM

Scenario

Server with the following technical specs:

• CPU: 4 @ 2.7GHZ
• RAM: 8GB

Checking Nginx Parameter

Key areas to inspect when looking at Nginx for a PHP-FPM environment consist of worker_connections and worker_processes

Worker Connections

Sets the maximum number of simultaneous connections that can be opened by a worker process. This is often set to the number of CPU cores.

Worker Processes

Sets the maximum number of simultaneous connections that can be opened by a worker process.

PHP-FPM

MaxChildren

To optimize PHP-FPM it is largely depends on the application itself. However a standard rule that would satisfy a broad subset of use cases would be:

pm.max_children = (Total RAM - Memory used for Linux, DB, etc.) / Average php process size

First, we need to install ps_mem to check the memory usage.

CentOS 

yum install ps_mem -y

Ubuntu

wget http://www.pixelbeat.org/scripts/ps_mem.py mv ps_mem.py /usr/local/sbin/ chmod 755 /usr/local/sbin/ps_mem.py

then run command

ps_mem.py

Here is the result:

the output should give you something like this (refer to the picture shown as above):

 776.6 MiB + 49.4 MiB =   826.1 MiB    php-fpm (105)

This means php-fpm is using in total 826.1 MiB with 105 Processes. After converting the value in Megabyte, we will divide it by the number of processes. This will tell us: How much each child process (105) is consuming.

826.1 MiB/105 Processes =  7.86 MiB

7.86MB memory / Processes

We can now calculate the number of process php-fpm can calculate via this simple formula:

max_children = (Total Number of Memory - 1000MB) / FPM Memory per Process

We reserved 1000MB for other process like mysql, nginx, etc.

max_children = (4000 MB - 1000 MB) / 7.86

max_children = 381.67

Quick Setup

At a most base level this seems to be the ideal setup based on peer review:

• nginx (<=1.9.0)
• zendopcache > apc (deprecated)
• php-fpm (fastcgi)

Note: It is also important to highlight that single core php-fpm instances will not gain much of a performance improvement. PHP-FPM benefits proportionately to the number of cpu cores available. While a dual core would yield a performance gain. A recommended number would be at least 4 cores.

Detailed Setup

In the /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf file:

[www]
user = www-data
group = www-data
chdir = /
listen = 127.0.0.1:9000
pm = dynamic            (ondemand might be better for memory usage)
pm.max_children         (total RAM - (DB etc) / process size)
pm.start_servers        (1/4 of cpu cores)
pm.min_spare_servers    (1/2 of cpu cores)
pm.max_spare_servers    (total of cpur cores)
pm.max_requests         (high to prevent server respwan)
                        (tip: set really low to find memory leaks)

In the /etc/php5/fpm/conf.d/local.ini file:

memory_limit = 324M (WxT needs at minimum 256MB)

According to our scenario sample then it will give result as below

pm = ondemand            
pm.max_children         (382)
pm.start_servers        (1)
pm.min_spare_servers    (2)
pm.max_spare_servers    (4)
pm.max_requests         (1000)
                       

Then just execute the following commands:

nginx -s reload

Other Topics:

How to build NGINX RTMP module, Setup Live Streaming with NGINX RTMP module, Publishing Stream with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), Create Adaptive Streaming with NGINX RTMP, Implementing Filtergraph in Streaming with NGINX RTMP, How to Implement Running Text in Streaming with NGINX RTMP, How to build OpenSceneGraph with Code::Blocks, How to build OpenSceneGraph with Visual Studio 2010, Building Geometry Model, How to run OpenSceneGraph with Netbean IDE 8.2 C++, Rendering Basic Shapes, Using OSG Node to Load 3D Object Model, Rendering 3D Simulator with OpenSceneGraph, How to compile wxWidgets with Visual Studio 2010