Apache2, FastCGI, PHP-FPM, APC on virtualmin panel with nginx front end reverse proxy

Question

My dream setup: php 5.3.6 + mysql 5.5.10 on Apache2, FastCGI, PHP-FPM, APC with nginx 1.0 front end reverse proxy. And as free server management panel: Virtualmin GPL on centos 5.6

In a new centos 5.6 setup. Using this code for installing virtualmin:

wget http://software.virtualmin.com/gpl/scripts/install.sh
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

After setup, i see php is 5.1 and mysql is 5.0 version. And system not supporting php-fpm but supporting fcgid wrapper. I did following changes:

wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/x86_64/ius-release-1.0-6.ius.el5.noarch.rpm
wget http://dl.iuscommunity.org/pub/ius/stable/Redhat/5/x86_64/epel-release-1-1.ius.el5.noarch.rpm
rpm -Uvh ius-release*.rpm epel-release*.rpm

yum install yum-plugin-replace

yum remove mysql.i386
yum replace mysql --replace-with mysql55
service mysqld restart
chkconfig mysqld on
mysql_upgrade --password=1234

yum replace php --replace-with php53u

yum install php53u-fpm php53u-pecl-apc
service httpd restart

chkconfig php-fpm on
service php-fpm start

I am not sure why virtualmin installing both mysql.i386 and 64 bit version together but needed to remove one of them for using yum replace. So i had php 5.3.6 + mysql 5.5.10 with PHP-FPM, APC installed. But virtualmin not supporting PHP-FPM + fastcgi and its still running on fcgid.

I am ultra newbie on server management so i couldnt find workaround after this. I want to switch fcgid wrapper to PHP-FPM + fastcgi at least for 1 virtual server. And if i can find a fix for this section, i want to setup nginx 1.0 as front end reverse proxy for serving static files and passing php files to apache. http://nginxcp.com/ is what i want but its for cpanel.

Answer 1

If you're not satisfied with the decisions that your server management software (virtualmin) makes, you have a few choices:

1. Get the vendor to change the software or at least provide additional functionality so it works how you want
2. Change it yourself (which in this case appears to be at least possible since it's GPL)
3. Change management software to one that does it your way
4. Do it by hand
5. Pay someone to do it for you

Since you're asking here, you're probably in situation (4), so for this case, you'll need to learn about nginx configuration. I'll let you search the web for advice on how to configure nginx with php-fpm and how to use nginx as a proxy for apache, there are plenty of articles available. However, the interesting directives for you will be fastcgi_pass and proxy_pass

I'll leave you with a recommendation to learn one of the standard configuration management tools such as cfengine, puppet, bcfg2, or chef to automate the configuration of the services you want to provide. Each of these tools attempts to manage your configurations without imposing restrictions about what that configuration (or even what software) you are permitted to use.