This example was used in the error log and stderr.log explanations.

User A was getting 503 errors. When we looked at his error log, we found many entries that looked like this:

2014-01-28 10:05:51.751 [INFO] [lsphp5] PID: 45143, add child process pid: 45175, procinfo: 0x15656f0
2014-01-28 10:05:51.790 [INFO] Remove pid: 45175, exitcode: 255
2014-01-28 10:05:51.790 [INFO] [66.249.64.1:14152-0#APVH_lsws.com] connection to [/tmp/lshttpd/lsphp5.sock] on request #0, confirmed, 0, associated process: -1, running: 0, error: Connection reset by peer!
2014-01-28 10:05:51.791 [INFO] [lsphp5] PID: 45143, add child process pid: 45177, procinfo: 0x15656f0
2014-01-28 10:05:51.829 [INFO] Remove pid: 45177, exitcode: 255
2014-01-28 10:05:51.829 [INFO] [66.249.64.1:14152-0#APVH_lsws.com] connection to [/tmp/lshttpd/lsphp5.sock] on request #0, confirmed, 0, associated process: -1, running: 0, error: Connection reset by peer!
2014-01-28 10:05:51.831 [INFO] [lsphp5] PID: 45143, add child process pid: 45179, procinfo: 0x15656f0
2014-01-28 10:05:51.869 [INFO] Remove pid: 45179, exitcode: 255
2014-01-28 10:05:51.869 [INFO] [66.249.64.1:14152-0#APVH_lsws.com] connection to [/tmp/lshttpd/lsphp5.sock] on request #0, confirmed, 0, associated process: -1, running: 0, error: Connection reset by peer!
2014-01-28 10:05:51.869 [NOTICE] [66.249.64.1:14152-0#APVH_lsws.com] Max retries has been reached, 503!
2014-01-28 10:05:51.869 [NOTICE] [66.249.64.1:14152-0#APVH_lsws.com] oops! 503 Service Unavailable^M

For some reason PHP processes were quitting right after they started. We knew that the process was not taking the request because of the “confirmed, 0” value, so we assumed the issue was in the php.ini.

We then looked through his stderr.log the time stamp of the error (10:05:51). We found:

2014-01-28 10:05:51.789 [STDERR] PHP Fatal error: Directive 'register_globals' is no longer available in PHP in Unknown on line 0
2014-01-28 10:05:51.828 [STDERR] PHP Fatal error: Directive 'register_globals' is no longer available in PHP in Unknown on line 0
2014-01-28 10:05:51.867 [STDERR] PHP Fatal error: Directive 'register_globals' is no longer available in PHP in Unknown on line 0

PHP is having trouble with the directive register_globals. When the user removed the directive from his php.ini, the 503 error was solved.