How to :- Set or Increase “max_execution_time” in Nginx or php-fpm/php

Often you have seen the ” 504 Gateway Time-out ” error on your web page if you have large WordPress setup or a server with limited resources.

You can fix this issue increasing max_execution_time in Nginx or  php/php-fpm php script execution time.

Set or Increase “max_execution_time” in Nginx

To increase or set max_execution_time in Nginx you will need to update your nginx vhost conf file. For example I am updating my example.com vhost file. You have to setup fastcgi_read_time as show below.

# vim /etc/nginx/sites‐available/example.com

location ~ \.php$ {
include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5‐fpm.sock;
fastcgi_read_timeout 60;
}

You can also increase time limit for all sites means for all vhost on your server, you will need to edit main nginx.conf file.

# vim /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Add following in http{..} section

http {
#...
fastcgi_read_timeout 60;
#...
}

Here I have set to 60 second. Please not down default value is 30 second by default so I have increase it to 60 seconds.

Reload Nginx

Don’t forget to do this so that changes you have made will come into effect:

# service php5‐fpm reload

# service nginx reload

Set or Increase “max_execution_time” in PHP

You can change the max execution time limit for php scripts for 30 seconds (default) to 60 seconds you have to update your php.ini file like below.

# vim /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini

Set..

max_execution_time = 60

In Apache, it is sufficient to set max execution time in php.ini, but in our case we need to make this change at 2 more places.

Set or Increase “max_execution_time” in PHP-FPM

This is only needed if you have already un-commented request_terminate_timeout parameter before. It is commented by default, and takes value of max_execution_time found in php.ini file.

You will need to edit.

# vim /etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Set..

request_terminate_timeout = 60

That’s all, I hope this tutorial will help you.