PHP-FPM Pool Tiers

Pool tiers define PHP-FPM pool sizing per site. LiteSoup includes three presets and supports custom configurations.

Default Tiers

Three built-in tiers cover common use cases:

Tier PM Mode max_children start_servers max_requests Best for
small ondemand 5 — 500 Low-traffic sites, dev/staging
medium dynamic 20 4 1,000 Most production sites
large dynamic 50 10 2,000 High-traffic sites

Custom Tiers

Navigate to Settings > Plans to view and edit pool tiers. Click the Edit button on any row to modify its parameters inline:

  • Name — tier identifier (small, medium, large)
  • PM — ondemand, dynamic, or static
  • Max Children — pm.max_children
  • Start Servers — pm.start_servers (dynamic only)
  • Min Spare — pm.min_spare_servers (dynamic only)
  • Max Spare — pm.max_spare_servers (dynamic only)
  • Max Reqs — pm.max_requests
  • Idle Timeout — pm.process_idle_timeout (ondemand only)

Click Save to persist changes to the dashboard database.

Apply to Server

After editing a tier, click the Apply button to push the configuration to a server:

  1. Click Apply on the tier row
  2. Select a server from the dropdown
  3. Click Apply in the confirmation modal

The dashboard sends the tier parameters to the server agent, which rewrites all PHP-FPM pool configs using that tier and reloads PHP-FPM automatically. The OutputDrawer shows real-time execution output.

Idempotent

Applying the same tier multiple times is safe — the script detects the current tier via pm.max_children and only updates pools that match the target tier.

Related

  • Sites — changing tier per site
  • Servers — server overview