How to Setup Nginx,PHP5.4, PHP-FPM, MySQL 5.5 On CentOS 6.5 VPS

This post will show you the procedure to setup Nginx, PHP5.4, PHP-FPM and MySQL 5.5 On CentOS 6.5 Virtual private server(VPS). You need to setup the required repo such as EPEL, Remi and also the NGINX repo.

What is NGINX ?

NGINX is an alternate web server for Apache. Nginx is an open source web server and a reverse proxy server for HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP protocols. Many websites and the web developer have moved to NGINX because it’s scalable, low resources, can handle many users concurrency and good website performance. Now it still third most popular web server in the world and it serve just over 14% of all hostnames.

What is PHP(PHP-FPM) ?

PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language. PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) is an alternative PHP FastCGI implementation with some additional features useful for sites of any size, especially busier sites.

What is MySQL ?

MySQL Database server is one of the most popular used database in the internet especially for content management and blogging site.

Steps to setup Nginx,PHP5.4, PHP-FPM, MySQL 5.5 On CentOS 6.5 VPS

1. Setup EPEL and Remi repository.
How to prepared EPEL and how to configure Remi repository in to CentOS.

2. Install php 5.4, php-fpm and MySQL 5.5 Server :

[root@vps-08 ~]# yum --enablerepo=remi install php php-mysql php-fpm mysql mysql-server -y

3. Setup repository for nginx :

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/nginx.repo

Add the following and save :

[nginx]
name=nginx repo
baseurl=http://nginx.org/packages/centos/$releasever/$basearch/
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

4. Install and setup NGINX :
Run the following command to install NGINX.

[root@vps-08 ~]# yum install nginx -y

a. Setup NGINX config file :

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Add the following and save:

user  nginx;
worker_processes  2;

error_log  /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;
pid        /var/run/nginx.pid;


events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}


http {
    include       /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    log_format  main  '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                      '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                      '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log  main;

    sendfile        on;
    #tcp_nopush     on;

    keepalive_timeout  65;

    gzip  on;
    gzip_types text/css text/x-component application/x-javascript application/javascript text/javascript text/x-js text/richtext image/svg+xml text/plain text/xsd text/xsl text/xml image/x-icon;

    include /etc/nginx/sites-available/*.conf;

}

b. Create sites-available directory and create nginx virtual host for example.com domain :

[root@vps-08 ~]# mkdir /etc/nginx/sites-available

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/nginx/sites-available/example.com.conf

Add the following and save :

server {
listen       80;
    server_name example.com;
    rewrite ^/(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 permanent;
}

server {
        server_name www.example.com;
        root /var/www/html/example;
        access_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.access.log;
        error_log /var/log/nginx/example.com.error.log;
        include conf.d/common.conf;
        include conf.d/wordpress.conf;
        include conf.d/w3tc.conf;
}

c. Create these three configuration files. It was optimized for WordPress site.

/etc/nginx/conf.d/common.conf
/etc/nginx/conf.d/wordpress.conf
/etc/nginx/conf.d/w3tc.conf

Create common.conf :

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/common.conf

Add the following and save.

# Global configuration file.
# ESSENTIAL : Configure Nginx Listening Port
listen 80;
# ESSENTIAL : Default file to serve. If the first file isn't found,
index index.php index.html index.htm;
# ESSENTIAL : no favicon logs
location = /favicon.ico {
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
}
# ESSENTIAL : robots.txt
location = /robots.txt {
    allow all;
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
}
# ESSENTIAL : Configure 404 Pages
error_page 404 /404.html;
# ESSENTIAL : Configure 50x Pages
error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }
# SECURITY : Deny all attempts to access hidden files .abcde
location ~ /\. {
    deny all;
}
# PERFORMANCE : Set expires headers for static files and turn off logging.
location ~* ^.+\.(js|css|swf|xml|txt|ogg|ogv|svg|svgz|eot|otf|woff|mp4|ttf|rss|atom|jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|ppt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf)$ {
    access_log off; log_not_found off; expires 30d;
}

Configure wordpress.conf :

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/wordpress.conf

Add the following and save :

# WORDPRESS : Rewrite rules, sends everything through index.php and keeps the appended query string intact
location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?q=$uri&$args;
}

# SECURITY : Deny all attempts to access PHP Files in the uploads directory
location ~* /(?:uploads|files)/.*\.php$ {
    deny all;
}
# REQUIREMENTS : Enable PHP Support
location ~ \.php$ {
    # SECURITY : Zero day Exploit Protection
    try_files $uri =404;
    # ENABLE : Enable PHP, listen fpm sock
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php-fpm.sock;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
}
# PLUGINS : Enable Rewrite Rules for SiteMap
rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.xml$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2" last;
rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.xml\.gz$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2;zip=true" last;
rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.html$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2;html=true" last;
rewrite ^/sitemap(-+([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+))?\.html.gz$ "/index.php?xml_sitemap=params=$2;html=true;zip=true" last;

Create w3tc.conf file :

[root@vps ~]# vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/w3tc.conf

Add the following and save :

# BEGIN W3TC Page Cache core
set $w3tc_rewrite 1;
if ($request_method = POST) {
    set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($query_string != "") {
    set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($http_cookie ~* "(comment_author|wp\-postpass|w3tc_logged_out|wordpress_logged_in|wptouch_switch_toggle)") {
    set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($http_cookie ~* "(w3tc_preview)") {
    set $w3tc_rewrite _preview;
}
set $w3tc_enc "";
if ($http_accept_encoding ~ gzip) {
    set $w3tc_enc _gzip;
}
set $w3tc_ext "";
if (-f "$document_root/wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/$http_host/$request_uri/_index$w3tc_rewrite.html$w3tc_enc") {
    set $w3tc_ext .html;
}
if (-f "$document_root/wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/$http_host/$request_uri/_index$w3tc_rewrite.xml$w3tc_enc") {
    set $w3tc_ext .xml;
}
if ($w3tc_ext = "") {
  set $w3tc_rewrite 0;
}
if ($w3tc_rewrite = 1) {
    rewrite .* "/wp-content/cache/page_enhanced/$http_host/$request_uri/_index$w3tc_rewrite$w3tc_ext$w3tc_enc" last;
}
# END W3TC Page Cache core

d. Modify default.conf file :

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  localhost;

    location / {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
        index  index.html index.htm;
    }

# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
    #
    error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
    location = /50x.html {
        root   /usr/share/nginx/html;
    }
}

5. Secure Mysql :

[root@vps-08 ~]# /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

Sample :

[root@vps-08 ~]# /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MySQL
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!


In order to log into MySQL to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user.  If you've just installed MySQL, and
you haven't set the root password yet, the password will be blank,
so you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password ensures that nobody can log into the MySQL
root user without the proper authorisation.

Set root password? [Y/n] y
New password:
Re-enter new password:
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!


By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MySQL without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] n
 ... skipping.

By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
 - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...



All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MySQL
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MySQL!

6. Configure php-fpm :

[root@vps-08 ~]# vi /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf

Update and uncomment the following :

listen = /var/run/php-fpm.sock
..
listen.mode = 0666
..
user = nginx
group = nginx
..
pm = dynamic
..
pm.max_children = 50
pm.start_servers = 10
pm.min_spare_servers = 10
pm.max_spare_servers = 10
pm.max_requests = 200
..
slowlog = /var/log/php-fpm/www-slow.log
..
php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log
php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on
..
php_value[session.save_handler] = files
php_value[session.save_path] = /var/lib/php/session

7. Restart the NGINX and php-fpm :
Restart the NGINX and php-fpm service to apply the changes on the configuration files.

[root@vps-08 ~]# service nginx restart; service php-fpm restart
Stopping nginx:                                            [  OK  ]
Starting nginx:                                            [  OK  ]
Stopping php-fpm:                                          [  OK  ]
Starting php-fpm:                                          [  OK  ]

Check the service listened on your VPS :

[root@vps-08 ~]# netstat -plunt | grep LISTEN
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:111                 0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      1097/rpcbind
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:80                  0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      18070/nginx
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:22                  0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      1130/sshd
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:3306                0.0.0.0:*                   LISTEN      18358/mysqld
tcp        0      0 :::111                      :::*                        LISTEN      1097/rpcbind
tcp        0      0 :::22                       :::*                        LISTEN      1130/sshd

Now you can start to setup WordPress blog into your VPS server.