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Ubuntu 12.04 x64 ~ LEMP+WordPress: PHP keeps crashing

  • Posted October 28, 2013

Hi folks,

I’m running a 512MB RAM droplet with 2 separate single WP installs. Both vhost configs are identical. One of them is very new with just 6 posts so far. The other has been around since Dec '12.

I need some help here. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why PHP keeps crashing. I had the same problem with PHP5.3 + APC. Now I’m on PHP5.5 with ZendOpcache. I have to keep checking my site every now and then and login via SSH to restart PHP. Doesn’t sound right to me.

i. repository ppa:ondrej/php5 ii. repository ppa:nginx/stable

If someone could take a look at my configs and let me know what’s not right, will be greatly appreciated. I’m new to VPS have moved from a cPanel Shared Hosting. I like to seed now and hate to return to shared hosting should things not work out for me.

  1. /etc/nginx/nginx.conf: http://pastebin.com/A6GTZkwx
  2. /etc/nginx/sites-available/mydomain: http://pastebin.com/GiiCLX0L
  3. /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini: http://pastebin.com/AYQSae6v

I’m prepared to move the newer WP install to a shared host if required. I am currently not running W3TC or CloudFlare. I reckon I should be sorting out the crashing PHP before all else.

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Kamal Nasser • November 5, 2013

Sweet! :]

nimopress • November 5, 2013

Guys, thanks for the help. PHP seems to be holding with Varnish installed. http://wp.me/pc4Vf-2b

Kamal Nasser • October 31, 2013

You can just browse to http://yourip:nginxport

nimopress • October 31, 2013

@Kamal, yeah I could do that. Erm, noob question. How do I temporarily switch off varnish for the test?

Kamal Nasser • October 30, 2013

Varnish acts as a reverse proxy and does not affect php5-fpm’s behavior at all. You can upgrade your droplet temporarily and see if that fixes it. Since billing is hourly it will cost you next to nothing :]

nimopress • October 30, 2013

@Kamal. Thanks for your input. I actually set ZendOpcache to 192MB and installed Varnish as suggested by Pablo. Seems like PHP is holding and hasn’t crashed. <br> <br>Does Varnish stop WordPress/PHP from caching? If so. does that mean my FastCGI settings are messed up in the first place? <br> <br>Be great if some could take a look at my configs and let me know if something is out of place. I haven’t installed swap yet. Upgrading is a possibility I guess but be silly if PHP still crashes after that…

Kamal Nasser • October 30, 2013

@Nicholas: I don’t recommend doing that on a 512MB droplet. 256MB of free RAM isn’t enough for MySQL – it’ll crash. Try adding swap and/or upgrading your droplet.

pablo • October 28, 2013

If it’s performance you’re interested in, you may want to check out <a href=“https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-wordpress-nginx-php-and-varnish-on-ubuntu-12-04”>How To Install Wordpress, Nginx, PHP, and Varnish on Ubuntu 12.04</a>.

nimopress • October 28, 2013

Hi Pablo, not yet but I will look into that. I have up the ZendOpcache memory from 128M default to 256M. It’s probably gonna delay the issue at best I think.

pablo • October 28, 2013

Have you installed swap (MySQL eats up a lot of resources)? If not, check out <a href=“https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-add-swap-on-ubuntu-12-04”>How To Add Swap on Ubuntu 12.04</a>.