This config is built on an Ubuntu 11.04 server. Software is nginx, php-fpm (php5-fpm). For performance, it's recommended to run php-fpm in SOCKET mode, instead of accessing via IP:PORT. That is the method shown below.

# Implement upstream connection to PHP-FPM
# "phpfpm" here is a name for this upstream connection, which you can customize
# I create a custom upstream connection per vhost, to better segregate PHP processes by vhost
# To do the same, you need a unique upstream name, and a unique filename for your php5-fpm.sock file
upstream phpfpm {
    server unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
}

server {
    # Listening on port 80 without an IP address is only recommended if you are not running multiple v-hosts
    #listen       80;
    # Bind to the public IP bound to your domain
    listen 123.456.789.012:80;
    # Specify this vhost's domain name
    server_name mydomainname.com;
    root /var/www/mydomainname.com/public;
    index index.php index.html index.htm;

    # Specify log locations for current site
    access_log /var/www/mydomainname.com/log/access.log;
    error_log /var/www/mydomainname.com/log/error.log warn;

    # Typically I create a restrictions.conf file that I then include across all of my vhosts
    #include conf.d/restrictions.conf;
    # I've included the content of my restrictions.conf in-line for this example

    # BEGIN restrictions.conf
    # Disable logging for favicon
    location = /favicon.ico {
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }

    # Disable logging for robots.txt
    location = /robots.txt {
        allow all;
        log_not_found off;
        access_log off;
    }

    # Deny all attempts to access hidden files such as .htaccess, .htpasswd, .DS_Store (Mac).
    location ~ /\. {
        deny all;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
    }
    # END restrictions.conf

    # Typically I create a yiiframework.conf file that I then include across all of my yii vhosts
    #include conf.d/yiiframework.conf;
    # I've included the content of my yiiframework.conf in-line for this example

    # BEGIN yiiframework.conf
    # Block access to protected, framework, and nbproject (artifact from Netbeans)
    location ~ /(protected|framework|nbproject) {
        deny all;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
    }

    # Block access to theme-folder views directories
    location ~ /themes/\w+/views {
        deny all;
        access_log off;
        log_not_found off;
    }

    # Attempt the uri, uri+/, then fall back to yii's index.php with args included
    # Note: old examples use IF statements, which nginx considers evil, this approach is more widely supported
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }
    # END yiiframework.conf

    # Tell browser to cache image files for 24 hours, do not log missing images
    # I typically keep this after the yii rules, so that there is no conflict with content served by Yii
    location ~* \.(js|css|png|jpg|jpeg|gif|ico)$ {
        expires 24h;
        log_not_found off;
    }

    # Block for processing PHP files
    # Specifically matches URIs ending in .php
    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;

        # Fix for server variables that behave differently under nginx/php-fpm than typically expected
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
        # Include the standard fastcgi_params file included with nginx
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        # Override the SCRIPT_FILENAME variable set by fastcgi_params
        fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        # Pass to upstream PHP-FPM; This must match whatever you name your upstream connection
        fastcgi_pass phpfpm;
    }
}

PHP-FPM config is below, have not had to optimize settings yet as they work fine for my usage. Replace any instance of USER,GROUP with the user and group you want to run the website under. Typical is www-data in Ubuntu. ~~~ [phpfpm]

listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock listen.owner = USER listen.group = GROUP listen.mode = 0666 ;listen.backlog = 4096 user = USER group = GROUP pm = dynamic pm.max_children = 50 pm.start_servers = 20 pm.min_spare_servers = 5 pm.max_spare_servers = 35 pm.status_path = /fpm-status ping.path = /fpm-ping ping.response = pong chdir = /var/www/mydomainname.com catch_workers_output = yes

request_terminate_timeout = 180s

; The following phpadmin* settings below, override php.ini settings php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/www/mydomainname.com/log/fpm-php-error.log

; The following settings are specifically used on development sites ; Should review/disable for production site php_admin_value[max_execution_time] = 180 php_admin_flag[log_errors] = on php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 320m php_admin_value[error_reporting] = E_ALL php_admin_flag[display_errors] = on php_admin_flag[display_startup_errors] = on ~~~