changing php fpm config to the following allows me to have 4000-8000 concurrent connections at once and 0 failure rates.. after running numerous ab tests.. it is now in production and running 2 boxes side by side and accepting requests perfectly.. it's only about 30% ramped up due to proxy servers.. but hitting it with ab I was very stable. if anything thing changes I'll report back in this but all seems good thus far
[global]
pid = run/php-fpm.pid
error_log = /var/log/nginx/fpm.log
[www]
listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock
listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1
listen.backlog = 10240
user = nobody
group = nobody
pm.status_path = /status
ping.path = /ping
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 50
pm.start_servers = 10
pm.min_spare_servers = 5
pm.max_spare_servers = 30
pm.max_requests = 0
request_terminate_timeout = 15s
rlimit_files = 10240
rlimit_core = unlimited
catch_workers_output = no
request_slowlog_timeout = 10s
slowlog = /var/log/nginx/fpm_slow.log
[global]
pid = run/php-fpm.pid
error_log = /var/log/nginx/fpm.log
[www]
listen = /var/run/php5-fpm.sock
listen.allowed_clients = 127.0.0.1
listen.backlog = 10240
user = nobody
group = nobody
pm.status_path = /status
ping.path = /ping
pm = dynamic
pm.max_children = 50
pm.start_servers = 10
pm.min_spare_servers = 5
pm.max_spare_servers = 30
pm.max_requests = 0
request_terminate_timeout = 15s
rlimit_files = 10240
rlimit_core = unlimited
catch_workers_output = no
request_slowlog_timeout = 10s
slowlog = /var/log/nginx/fpm_slow.log