The result is a much faster response time for the php-driven web pages. It’s almost instant!

The changes are really simple.

Updating php-fpm

in /etc/php/php-fpm.conf (your path may be different from mine):

change this

<value name="listen_address">127.0.0.1:9000</value>

to this

<value name="listen_address">/var/run/phpfpm.sock</value>

Updating nginx

In your nginx.conf, change this:

fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;

to this

fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/phpfpm.sock;

That’s it !

You can use another path or file name for the socket. But it shall be the same in both configuration files.

Okay, i had been setting up quite a few virtual box, mainly Ubuntu based, for my development work or testing. And its not that fun to keep repeating the same process of compiling php and nginx, not to mention the configuration part.

So i wrote this simple script to help automate some of the processes. By running this script, you get a simple but fully working, light weight web server as well as mysql database. It’s great for people just want to try out nginx, as it’s getting popular but probably there are still people have not heard about it, or heard about it but have not tried it. And I hope this script may help to close the gap a bit.

DISCLAIMER !

• The script is provided “as is”. There is no support or warranty that i am providing.
• I am not responsible for any damage that may happens on your system. you had been warned.
• The script is released under GPL, so just grab it and modify if you like. Send me suggestion or patches and we can make it better together.

Also, I am no bash/shell script expert, so at this stage of the script, altho usable, is not very refined and flexible. If I have time I will improve as I go along.

Credits

Before going on to the juice of this post, a little credit first.

The script is largely base on some recipes / tutorials I found on the internet. Most importantly this one from InterfaceLab Blog: NGINX + PHP-FPM + APC = Awesome

Feel free to visit it if you want to understand the script better.

Pre-Requisite

I tested the script on Ubuntu server JJ / 9.04. But 8.04 should works fine too. Other ubuntu based linux distro should work also, altho I have not tested them. I would like to know if you tried them on say Xubuntu or Kubuntu.

I strongly recommend you to run the script in a fresh install, like under a virtual box. If not, at least make sure you do NOT have php, nginx already installed. At the moment the script is not smart enough to resolve any conflict yet.

What do you get after installation

• PHP 5.2.8 patched with php-fpm for FastCGI
• Nginx 0.7.61
• MySQL thru apt-get (exact version depends on your repository configuration)
• Memcache server
• PHP Extension Compiled in: bz2, cgi-fcgi, ctype, curl, date, dom, filter, gd, hash, iconv, json, libxml, mbstring, mcrypt, mhash, mysql, openssl, pcntl, pcre, pgsql, posix, session, SimpleXML, sockets, SPL, SQLite, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, zip, zlib
• PHP Extension Modules: Memcache, APC, Syck
• Phpmyadmin 3.2.2 English

If you want to change the Php, nginx version, or PHP modules that you want to add/remove, you can modify the script (lemp-installer.sh) to do so.

Download

Just get it here http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/768270/recipes/lemp-installer-0.1.tar.gz

Running the Installer Script

Goto the folder where you downloaded the tar.gz file. In your bash shell, type this:

tar zxvf lemp-installer-0.1.tar.gz
cd lemp-installer-0.1
./lemp-installer.sh

That’s it !

NOTE: You might be prompted to enter your sudo password a few times. You will also be prompted during installation of mysql server for the database master password.

Where to GO from here

I am sure you will want to configure/customize the web server to your need, to do so, go to these folders:

• Php – /etc/php
• Nginx – /etc/nginx
• Web Sites – /etc/sites

I also listed some resources here for your reference:

• PHP – www.php.net
• Php-Fpm – http://php-fpm.org/Main_Page
• Nginx – http://nginx.net/
• Nginx wiki – http://wiki.nginx.org/

And remember, Google is your friend :p

With that, have fun running the script and playing with nginx

Basically searching for people who tweets the term twitpic before, these shall be my potetinal users as well.

I have few followed back, not alot. But I can take it slowly. Myself will start uploading more picture for contents to attract people to try out as well.

Hope there will be people signing up soon and server can take the load, should not be a problem initially, keep my finger crossed

Just came across this nice tutorial on mod_rewrite of Apache. I have not read thru the whole article in detail, but its use of graphics to illustrate some of the ideas have me sold.

Too bad that I switched over to use Nginx, else this will come in handy. But will be a good reference still.

Link: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/other/a-deeper-look-at-mod_rewrite-for-apache/

One of which is the image overlay plugin which works great in browse and search page. When you mouse over the thumbnail a text overlay will slides up the image title. A great way to browse the pictures.

However it seems sometimes it causes problem in Firefox, I can reproduce it in Firefox on Windows XP and Ubuntu 64bit OS but easier to reproduce in WinXP. So far I do see this problem in Safari, Chrome or Opera.

So I am wondering if this is Firefox related or it problem coming from the ImageOverlay plugin itself.

The problem basically is related to the layout. It seems the script causes the layout to be distorted. However, the weird thing is it doesn’t always happen. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, so this makes me think that the problem probably lies with some timing issue.

If anyone encountered such problem before I would like to know … meanwhile I will need to some debugging.

I stored all my code base at xp-dev.com, which is a great subversion hosting. I highly recommend it. I like it so much now I had became a paid user instead of free account.

Anyway, the basic feature of the jiaoz site is pretty much up. Added lot of minor goodies to enhance the UX.

The final task shall be redo the home page layout to make the first impression more stand out.

Note to Self for future enhancements:

• Picture comments filtering by selecting an area on picture
• Anonymous comments filtering (or simply disallow anonymous comment?)
• Reporting mechanism for picture abuse (copyright? bad taste?)

Let’s see if I can roll out alpha version by end of the month … will do so by simply keep posting new picture on twitter. Kinda low profile as it is launching, rather than big bang. I don’t want the server to be DDoSed …

The web site shall be launching soon (it’s actually kinda up, but no exteral back link so sort of no one knows about it anyway).

Still got some lose ends to tie up:

• Logo (i will try my best … i am not formally design trained, anyway. But well …)
• Touch up this blog (configuration, more contents etc)
• Redesign the Home page
• Redo About page
• Enhance the security especially SQL injection and xss
• Add a twitter account ?
• Setup email !

That should be all for now. Stay tuned!