High-performance PHP on apache httpd 2.4.x using mod_proxy_fcgi and php-fpm.

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• starting from release 5.3.3 in early 2010, PHP has merged the php-fpm fastCGI process manager into its codebase, and it is now (as of 5.4.1) quite stable.
• php-fpm was previously found at http://php-fpm.org/

This means that we can now run secure, fast, and dependable PHP code using only the stock apache httpd and php.net releases; no more messing around with suphp or suexec - or, indeed, mod_php.

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• installing software packages
• editing configuration files
• controlling service daemons.

From release 5.3.3 onwards, PHP now includes the fastCGI process manager (php-fpm) in the stock source code.

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prerequisites:

• editing httpd.conf
• understanding the vhost context
• understanding URL-to-filesystem namespace mapping
• controlling the apache httpd daemon

This release of apache httpd has introduced two noteworthy features: a new proxy module specifically for fastCGI (mod_proxy_fcgi), and the move to the event MPM as the default apache process manager.

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If such restrictions cannot be implemented easily, then checks could be performed prior to proxying with a RewriteCond or FallbackResource to ensure that the URI is not altered by the HTTP client.

Experiments with timeouts

For long-running scripts, setting a large timeout might help. This approach will set the time out value to 300 seconds, and allow you to be selective about what requests are proxied:

<Proxy "unix:/var/run/php-fpm/example.com.sock|fcgi://localhost">
   ProxySet timeout=300
</Proxy>

<FilesMatch \.php$>
   SetHandler "proxy:fcgi://localhost"
</FilesMatch>