This took a little doing and some major tweaking. Assuming you have the LoadModule line already...

  AddHandler fcgid-script .php

  <Directory /home/elitesys/elite-systems.org/html>
    FCGIWrapper /home/elitesys/elite-systems.org/html/php.fcgi .php
  Directory>

  IPCConnectTimeout 20
  IPCCommTimeout 300

Add the handler for php files, specify the wrapper (in this case the file in the root of the site) and setup connect and communication timeouts. The timeouts are in seconds and you need to set it like that or higher or else file uploads will timeout and I have heard of issues with Wordpress if you don't increase it.

And in php.fcgi...

#!/bin/sh
PHPRC="/usr/php4/etc"
export PHPRC
PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=4
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN
PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS
exec /usr/php4/bin/php

This should look familiar to another post...

There isn't a definition for suexec in terms of executable location. There doesn't have to be. Apache will automatically wrap it properly. This configuration is far easier than mod_fastcgi and works just as well. Probably easily expanded to work with ruby on rails although I havn't tried yet...

If you have problem with compiling php as cgi-fastcgi *run* make clean. It worked for me and, probably, it will work for you.

And here's my ./configure options for compiling php as cgi-fastcgi with some features I need.

simanyay $ make clean
simanyay $ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/php5/ --enable-mbstring --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --with-mysql-sock=/t
mp/mysql.sock --with-mysqli --with-pdo-mysql=/usr/local/mysql --enable-force-cgi-redirect --enable-fastcgi --with-cur
l --with-sockets --enable-memory-limit --with-config-file-scan-dir=/usr/local/php5/sharecfg
simanyay $ make
simanyay $ sudo make install
simanyay $ /usr/local/php5/bin/php -v
PHP 5.1.4 (cgi-fcgi) (built: May 23 2006 20:03:51)
Copyright (c) 1997-2006 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies

<?php
/**
 * Get HTTP Auth to work with PHP+FastCGI
 *
 * @author  Jacques Marneweck 
 * @license PHP License v3.01
 */

/**
 * Get HTTP Auth to work with PHP+FastCGI
 */

    

if (isset($_SERVER["AUTHORIZATION"]) && !empty($_SERVER["AUTHORIZATION"])) {

    list ($type, $cred) = split (" ", $_SERVER['AUTHORIZATION']);

    if ($type == 'Basic') {
        list ($user, $pass) = explode (":", base64_decode($cred));
        $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_USER'] = $user;
        $_SERVER['PHP_AUTH_PW'] = $pass;
    }

}

fastcgi.server = (
".fcgi" =>
                    ( "localhost" =>
                        (
                            "socket" => "/tmp/textdrive-new.socket",
                            "bin-path" => "/users/home/website/web/public/dispatch.fcgi",
                            "bin-environment" => ( "RAILS_ENV" => "production" )
                        )
                    ),
".php" =>
                    ( "localhost" =>
                        (
                            "socket" => "/tmp/textdrive-php5-fcgi.socket",
                            "bin-path" => "/usr/local/www/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi",
                            "bin-environment" => (
                            "PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "4",   
                            "PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "5000"
                                                 )
                        )       
                    )
)

#!/bin/sh

USERNAME=username
LIGHTTPD_CONF=/home/$USERNAME/service/lighttpd.conf
PIDFILE=/home/$USERNAME/service/logs/lighttpd.pid
HTTPD=/home/$USERNAME/lighttpd/sbin/lighttpd

PID=0
if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
    PID=`cat $PIDFILE`
    if [ "x" == "x$PID" ]; then
        PID=0
    fi
fi

case "$1" in
    start)
        if [ 0 -ne $PID ]; then
            running=`ps --pid $PID | grep $PID`
            if [ $running ]; then
                echo "lighttpd is already running"
                exit 1
            fi
            rm $PIDFILE
            PID=0
        fi
        $HTTPD -f $LIGHTTPD_CONF
        ;;
    stop)
        if [ 0 -eq $PID ]; then
            echo "lighttpd was not running"
            exit 1
        fi
        kill $PID
        tries=""
        while [ -e $PIDFILE ]; do
            if [ "x$tries" == "x.........." ]; then
                break
            fi
            sleep 2
            tries=".$tries"
        done
        if [ -e $PIDFILE ]; then
            echo "lighttpd did not go gentle into that good night, murdering"
            kill -9 $PID
            rm $PIDFILE
        fi
        ;;
    restart)
        $0 stop
        $0 start
        ;;
    reload)
        if [ 0 -eq $PID ]; then
            echo "lighttpd was not running"
        fi
        kill -HUP $PID
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Usage: "`basename $0`" (start|stop|restart|reload)"
        exit 1
        ;;
esac

This daedalus config as well as my previous snippet is meant to supplement chapter 5 of "Lighttpd the painless way".

This config is dependent on having a ~/lighttpd directory setup as described in that manual. Also, you must have the restart.rb script (again from my previous snippet) in the lighttpd folder.

As before, remember to swap out your USERNAME, DOMAIN, and PORT.

The first check here is that a lighttpd process is running. If not then it calls restart.rb which will kill any zombie dispatchers and restart lighttpd.

The second check is more of a departure from the original suggestion. Rather than checking that a specific file is generating the expected output, I go right to the source and verify that lighttpd is responding with an HTTP header on the port you were assigned. This is a pure indication of whether lighttpd is responsive on the correct port. It won't be fouled up by application errors or apache forwarding misconfiguration. More importantly, it won't generate a flood of restarts due to an unrelated code error.

Also, you will notice I set the checkinterval to 10 minutes. I felt this was a good compromise between keeping lighttpd up and saturating the server with unnecessary processing.

name: lighttpd
checkcommand: /bin/ps axww
checkregex: /lighttpd/
onfailcommand: /home/USERNAME/lighttpd/restart.rb
checkinterval: 600 
aftercommandwait: 120

name: lighttpd-external
checkcommand: /usr/local/bin/curl -I http://YOURDOMAIN.com:YOURPORT
checkregex: /^HTTP/s
onfailcommand: /usr/bin/killall -9 lighttpd; /home/USERNAME/lighttpd/restart.rb
checkinterval: 600 
aftercommandwait: 120

By using this script to start lighttpd you can be sure you won't be leaving rogues dispatchers around sucking up memory and generally pissing jason off. Don't get caught with your pants down!

Make sure to change USERNAME below, as well as any paths that may be different in your case.

#!/usr/local/bin/ruby
#Modified from Julik's original code posted to TextDrive forums.

pstab = `ps axww`

def kill_fcgi_proc(line)
  its = line.strip.split(/\s+/)
  pid = its[0]
  puts "KILLING #{line}"
  `kill -9 #{pid}`
  sleep(3)
end

if pstab =~ /\/usr\/local\/sbin\/lighttpd -f/
  
  puts "Lighttpd still running."

else

  pstab.scan(/^.*dispatch\.fcgi\s*$/) do |line|
    kill_fcgi_proc line
  end

  pstab = `ps axww`
  
  if pstab =~ /dispatch\.fcgi/
    puts "Error, rogue dispatch.fcgi's still pissing jason off."
  else
    puts "Rogue dispatch.fcgi's cleared, starting lighty!"
    `/usr/local/sbin/lighttpd -f /home/USERNAME/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf`
  end
  
end

Use the modified dispatcher.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
use MT::Bootstrap;
use CGI::Fast;

# preload app packages
use MT::App::CMS;
use MT::App::Comments;
use MT::App::Trackback;
use MT::App::Search;
## uncomment if necessary, but this adds a lot of
## overhead since it loads up LibXML.
##use MT::AtomServer;


my $handlers = {
    'mt.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::CMS', name => 'AdminScript' },
    'mt-comments.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::Comments', name => 'CommentScript' },
    'mt-tb.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::Trackback', name => 'TrackbackScript' },
    'mt-search.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::App::Search', name => 'SearchScript' },
## See note above about this...
##    'mt-atom.fcgi' => { class => 'MT::AtomServer', name => 'AtomScript' },
};

eval {
    while (my $q = new CGI::Fast) {
        my $cgi = $q->script_name;
        $cgi =~ s!.*/!!;
        my $pkg = $handlers->{$cgi}{class};
        die "Invalid handler for $cgi" unless $pkg;
        my $app = $pkg->new(CGIObject => $q) or die $pkg->errstr;
        local $SIG{__WARN__} = sub { $app->trace($_[0]) };
        $app->init_request(CGIObject => $q) unless $app->{init_request};
        fixup_script_names($app);
        
        # do a little nasty over-the-back jump and setup MySQL on every connection        
        my $driver = MT::Object->driver;
        my $dbh = $driver->{dbh};
              my $names_cmd = $dbh->prepare("SET NAMES UTF8");
        $names_cmd->execute();
    
        $app->run;
        my $mode = $app->mode || '';
        if ("$pkg->$mode" eq 'MT::App::CMS->plugin_control') {
            exit; # allows server to recycle after changing plugin switches
        }
    }
};
if ($@) {
    print "Content-Type: text/htmlnn";
    print "Got an error: $@";
}

sub fixup_script_names {
    my ($app) = @_;
    $app->config($handlers->{$_}{name}, $_) foreach keys %$handlers;
}

The following is my setup on OS X 10.4.2 using PHP 5.0.5

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/php5-fcgi --enable-fastcgi --enable-force-cgi-redirect --disable-cli --enable-memory-limit --with-layout=GNU --with-regex=php

make

sudo make install

The compile flags enable a fairly basic PHP setup, you may need to add more options for things like MySQL, etc. DO NOT ADD --with-apxs OR --with-apxs2 AS A COMPILE FLAG -- THESE ARE APACHE ONLY AND WILL PROBABLY BREAK UNDER LIGHTTPD!

Add the following to your lighttpd.conf file

fastcgi.server = ( ".php" =>
                   ( "localhost" =>
                     ( "socket" => "/tmp/php5-fcgi.socket",
                       "bin-path" => "/usr/local/php5-fcgi/bin/php"
                     )
                   )
                 )

Restart lighttpd, now with PHP support

This isn't a benchmark, but it's a great way to send a lot of requests to your box and check if there's anything wrong with your FastCGI setup:

for url in `cat urlslist.txt`;
do
    COUNTER=0
    while [  $COUNTER -lt 2 ]; do
        echo -n ${COUNTER}-
        curl --silent --user yourUSER:yourPASS $url | grep "Internal"
        let COUNTER=COUNTER+1 
    done
done

But what you do is add the --with-config-file-scan-dir where you add an extra extensions.ini file that dynamically loads different php extensions that you compile separately.

You will need to have compiled and installed libxml into /usr/local/ or if you are on Mac's Tiger, you can change the path to /usr and that should do ya.

./configure --enable-memory-limit --with-layout=GNU --with-config-file-scan-dir=/usr/local/etc/php --disable-all --enable-libxml --with-libxml-dir=/usr/local --enable-spl --with-regex=php --disable-cli --enable-force-cgi-redirect --enable-fastcgi

And you don't want to leave that /usr/local/bin/php binary sitting there because it's cgi-fcgi, you're going to replace it with php-cli

mv /usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/bin/php-fcgi

/usr/local/bin/php-fcgi is then the binary you use for all PHP CGI and FCGI.

fastcgi.server = (
                ".php" =>
                    ( "localhost" =>
                        (
                            "socket" => "/home/jah/tmp/jah-php5-fcgi.socket",
                            "bin-path" => "/usr/local/www/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -c /home/jah/etc/php.ini",
                            "bin-environment" => (
                            "PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "4",
                            "PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "5000"
                                                 )
                        )
                    )
                 )

A PHP cgi binary compiled with fcgi support

> /usr/local/www/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi -v
PHP 5.0.3 (cgi-fcgi) (built: Dec 30 2004 22:44:32)

Central config in httpd.conf

<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
FastCgiIpcDir /usr/local/www/fcgi_ipc/tmp
AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi
FastCgiSuexec /usr/local/sbin/suexec
FastCgiConfig -singleThreshold 100 -killInterval 300 -autoUpdate -idle-timeout 240 -pass-header HTTP_AUTHORIZATION
IfModule>
/php-fastcgi/>
Options ExecCGI        
SetHandler fastcgi-script
Location>

In a virtual host

SuexecUserGroup ${USER} ${GROUP}
ScriptAlias /php-fastcgi/ ${HOME}/php-fastcgi/ 
AddType application/x-httpd-fastphp .php
Action application/x-httpd-fastphp /php-fastcgi/php5-fcgi

And then the ${HOME}/php-fastcgi/php5-fcgi wrapper

#!/bin/sh 
PHPRC="/usr/local/etc" 
export PHPRC 
PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=8 
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN 
PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000 
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS 
exec /usr/local/www/cgi-bin/php5-fcgi 

The PHPRC environment sets the directory where php.ini is to be found