cannot get lighttpd configured to PHP 7 - php

Question

Apart from logging to the wrong file (the error log defined for that vhost defined last),
lighty does not let me use PHP 7. What am I missing?
cgi.fix_pathinfo is enabled in /etc/php/7.0/fpm/php.ini.
How can I make sure you're using the FastCGI-enabled version? What else should I look for?
version info (shrinked to the necessary)
> lsb_release -a
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
Codename: xenial
> lighttpd -v
lighttpd/1.4.35 (ssl) - a light and fast webserver
Build-Date: Apr 18 2016 15:36:10
> php -v
PHP 7.0.8-0ubuntu0.16.04.3 (cli) ( NTS )
> php-cgi -v
PHP 5.6.23-1+deprecated+dontuse+deb.sury.org~trusty+1 (cgi-fcgi)
> php-fpm7.0 -v
PHP 7.0.8-0ubuntu0.16.04.3 (fpm-fcgi)
lighty config file excerpt
> head -41 /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf | tail -9
fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => ((
"bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi",
"socket" => "/tmp/php.socket",
"bin-environment" => (
"PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "16",
"PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "1000"
),
"broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
)))
tryouts
If I change the socket to an invalid path, restarting lighttpd works fine; but the server is unreachable. (bind failed for: (invalid path) in the error log); so this seems like the correct config file.
Modifying /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/15-fastcgi-php.conf in the same way has no effect at all.
Changing the socket to "/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock" has no effect either (php_info() still says PHP 5.6 after restarting lighty).
After changing bin-path to /usr/sbin/php-fpm7.0 , I still get no error when restarting lighttpd, but the web server is unreachable.
error log excerpt
> tail /var/log/lighttpd/error.log
(no output)
> tail /var/log/lighttpd/somevhost/error.log
2016-10-10 16:48:02: (log.c.164) server started
2016-10-10 16:48:02: (mod_fastcgi.c.1112) the fastcgi-backend /usr/sbin/php-fpm7-0 failed to start:
2016-10-10 16:48:02: (mod_fastcgi.c.1116) child exited with status 2 /usr/sbin/php-fpm7-0
2016-10-10 16:48:02: (mod_fastcgi.c.1119) If you're trying to run your app as a FastCGI backend, make sure you're using the FastCGI-enabled version.
If this is PHP on Gentoo, add 'fastcgi' to the USE flags.
2016-10-10 16:48:02: (mod_fastcgi.c.1406) [ERROR]: spawning fcgi failed.
2016-10-10 16:48:02: (server.c.1022) Configuration of plugins failed. Going down.
update
I just uninstalled php5 hoping this would resolve the issues; but that didn´t help either. Instead, I seem to have no way to get php5 back.

Answer 1

Tried a search engine?
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=lighttpd+ubuntu+php+7
The first hit:
https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/installing-lighttpd-with-php7-php-fpm-and-mysql-on-ubuntu-16.04-lts/
suggests
## Start an FastCGI server for php (needs the php7.0-cgi package)
fastcgi.server += ( ".php" =>
((
"socket" => "/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock",
"broken-scriptfilename" => "enable"
))
)
to go along with php.ini cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
You can follow the instructions on the page above to have Ubuntu run php7.0-fpm as a service, or you can configure lighttpd to start up the fastcgi.server backend by setting "bin-path" in the fastcgi.server definition, but do not do both.