PHP-FPM with Apache2

Processing PHP is slow and clunky on Apache Modules, therefore people move to NGINX for higher HTTP response concurrency.

Apache has something similar called mpm_events, to use this we need to disable the Apache PHP module.

Below are the steps for a complete change from Apache PHP module to PHP-FPM for processing, and optimising Apache to use mpm_events instead of mpm_prefork.

First, we need to install PHP-FPM, configure Apache to route .php processing to PHP-FPM, then optimise the number of PHP-FPM threads. After which we will change Apache from mpm_prefork to mpm_events for higher concurrency processing.

This guide assumes you are operating on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Installing PHP-FPM

sudo apt install python-software-properties 
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
apt update
sudo apt install php7.3 php7.3-fpm php7.3-curl php7.3-mysql php7.3-xmlrpc php7.3-bcmath php7.3-mbstring php7.3-xml

Now we have to check if PHP-FPM is running as a daemon.

sudo systemctl status php7.3-fpm

You should be able to see something like this.

php7.3-fpm.service - The PHP 7.3 FastCGI Process Manager Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/php7.3-fpm.service;
enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Tue 2019-07-23 03:28:26 UTC; 17min ago
Docs: man:php-fpm7.3(8)
Main PID: 30011 (php-fpm7.3)
Status: "Processes active: 38, idle: 3, Requests: 20367, slow:
0, Traffic: 17.2req/sec"

Tasks: 102 (limit: 4915)
CGroup: /system.slice/php7.3-fpm.service
        ├─10217 php-fpm: pool www 
        ├─10277 php-fpm: pool www 
        ├─10278 php-fpm: pool www 
        └─30011 php-fpm: master process
(/etc/php/7.3/fpm/php-fpm.conf)

Jul 23 03:28:26 systemd[1]: Starting The PHP 7.3 FastCGI Process Manager...
Jul 23 03:28:26 systemd[1]: Started The PHP 7.3 FastCGI Process Manager.

Configuring Apache2

Enable these modules so that Apache can route PHP processing to PHP-FPM.

a2enmod actions alias proxy_fcgi setenvif

Edit the Apache configuration file to route the processing. (Also edit for 000-default-ssl.conf if needed)

sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

Add these lines into this file

<FilesMatch \.php$> 
    SetHandler
"proxy:unix:/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost/" 
</FilesMatch>

Make sure your .sock is in the correct path

Restart Apache to test if your website still works.

sudo systemctl restart apache2

You may have to run these commands to enable PHP-FPM with Apache

a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif 
a2enconf php7.3-fpm

Changing mpm module

Now we change the mpm module from prefork to events.

a2dismod php7.3 mpm_prefork 
a2enmod mpm_event
sudo systemctl restart apache2

Check if Server MPM is changed to events

sudo apachectl -V | grep MPM

You should see

Server MPM: event

Optimising Apache2 mpm_event

cd /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/

nano mpm_event.conf

<IfModule mpm_event_module> 
    KeepAlive On
    KeepAliveTimeout 5 
    MaxKeepAliveRequests 128

    ServerLimit 10
    StartServers 4
    ThreadLimit 128 
    ThreadsPerChild 128 
    MinSpareThreads 256 
    MaxSpareThreads 512 
    MaxRequestWorkers 1280 
    MaxConnectionsPerChild 2048
</IfModule>

Optimising PHP-FPM

Now that we have increased the concurrency of Apache2, we now have to increase the number of PHP processing servers.

cd /etc/php/7.3/fpm/pool.d/ 
nano ​www.conf

Make sure the following is entered

pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 100 
pm.start_servers = 20 
pm.min_spare_servers = 10 
pm.max_spare_servers = 30 
pm.process_idle_timeout = 10s;

Restart both process

sudo systemctl restart php7.3-fpm 
sudo systemctl restart apache2

And you're done! Congratulations! PHP processing is now handled by PHP-FPM!

Comments

[Leslie]

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