Using PHP-FPM inside a PHP process

Question

The setup is two separate PHP projects running on the same server using PHP-FPM. Currently they "speak" to each other over JSON by making HTTP requests with cURL.

The issue here is that cURL and web server overhead is a waste of time. After all the other program is right there, in a folder just above the current one. So why go the long way around with cURL and HTTP? The trick is I can't just include a file form the other project because autoloaders clash and make a big mess. For that reason they need separate processes and not share too much.

What I've proposed to solve the issue is to create a Node.js server that listens to a socket that my PHP process can connect to and is able to make requests to PHP-FPM directly using the node-phpfpm module. While this solves the issue, I'm asking myself why is that Node.js proxy needed?

There must be a way to make a new FPM request directly from PHP but I haven't found it.

I know I could also use the CLI executable with exec() but that's not pretty at all. To be more specific, passing request data with exec() is nearly impossible.

Without a bunch of work making HTTP requests is going to be the most efficient. Adding a Node proxy doesn't really do that much for you, after all if you're using PHP-FPM it's probably already fronted with a reverse proxy like Nginx. — doublesharp
– doublesharp, Commented Mar 19, 2016 at 19:56

user5509120 · Accepted Answer · 2016-03-19 20:40:29Z

You can make a request from PHP script to PHP-FPM instance directly through UNIX or TCP/IP socket using, for example, this library: https://github.com/ebernhardson/fastcgi

Example code, based on readme:

<?php use EBernhardson\FastCGI\Client as FastCGIClient; use EBernhardson\FastCGI\CommunicationException; $client = new FastCGIClient('/var/run/php5-fpm.sock'); try { $client->request([ 'REQUEST_METHOD' => 'POST', 'SCRIPT_FILENAME' => '/full/path/to/script.php', ], $postBody); $response = $client->response(); } catch (CommunicationException $e) { // Handle exception }

There are other libraries you can consider: https://packagist.org/search/?q=fastcgi

Thanks! I actually found a clone of the library you mentioned soon after posting. An extension would be much nicer though. I don't like the idea of specifying how to connect, that is done on the web server side. Duplicating configuration always causes trouble.
Seems like this is an only option, because PHP-FPM SAPI does not expose much API functions, like Apache module does. For example, script running in mod_php can make internal subrequest using this function php.net/manual/en/function.virtual.php.

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