Best PHP handler for PHP 5.6

[Joe Blow]

I am currently using CGI as the PHP handler for Xenforo running on PHP 5.6. A technician at my host described it as "the oldest, slowest, least secure, and absolute worst handler option for any PHP version."

When he switched to suPHP Xenforo crashed and displayed an "internal error or misconfiguration" server error.

What is the best PHP handler for performance and security given that suPHP won't work for me?

 

[WSWD]

The internal error is because your file/folder permissions are wrong for suPHP. It runs Apache as your user instead of as nobody. So the normal permissions won't work. If you change your permissions properly, suPHP will work.

DSO and FastCGI are both good handlers.

 

[jeffatrackaid]

Are you on a WHM/cPanel server? If so, I recommend PHP-FPM.

All of your files need to be owned by your user id and permissions should be:
files : 644
directories: 755

Also, you may want to try PHP 7.x if you do not have other apps running. Make sure your PHP has the opcode cache module installed if using PHP-FPM.

Upgrading MySQL may help with performance as well but you have to be careful as unlike PHP in WHM, it is not easy to downgrade MySQL.

 

[Joe Blow]

Thanks for the assistance.