PHP working with nginx using FastCGI on Ubuntu

By Jorn van Engelen on Wednesday, February 16, 2011.

How to get PHP working with nginx using FastCGI.

Tested on Ubuntu 10.04 server.

Nginx

Install nginx, from repo or source, both should be OK.

PHP

Install PHP from the repo's:

# sudo apt-get install php5-cli php5-cgi

Configuring

Create an init script for PHP FastCGI:
1. Download the fastcgi-php init script
```
# wget -O /etc/init.d/fastcgi-php \
    http://ftp.quzart.com/notes/php-nginx-fcgi/fastcgi-php
```
  As always, check the contents of the script. Does it do what you want and nothing more? Else, make changes!
2. Make the script executable:
```
# chmod 0755 /etc/init.d/fastcgi-php
```
3. Install init script:
```
# update-rc.d fastcgi-php defaults    
```

Edit nginx configuration. Example configuration:

server {
  listen      80;
  server_name www.quzart.com;


  access_log  /home/quzart/domains/www.quzart.com/logs/access.log;
  error_log   /home/quzart/domains/www.quzart.com/logs/error.log;


  root        /home/quzart/domains/www.quzart.com/public_html;
  index       index.txt index.html index.xhtml index.php;


  location / {
    autoindex off;
  }


  # This is the important part for PHP:
  location ~ \.php$ {
    include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fastcgi-php/fastcgi-php.sock;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /home/quzart/domains/www.quzart.com/public_html$fastcgi_script_name;
  }
}

Running

Now it's time to test our configuration.

Start fastcgi-php:
```
# invoke-rc.d fastcgi-php start
```
Reload nginx's configuration files:
```
# invoke-rc.d nginx reload
```
Check whether your PHP scripts run.