One of the easiest ways to install/upgrade PHP on Mac OS-X is using brew. In the current version, if you install PHP 5.3 or 5.4 via brew using FPM, the php-fpm launcher installs in the foreground mode, by default. That can be very inconvenient, since it means that when you launch php-fpm it holds a terminal window and if you close the window, the process dies.

Luckily it is also something very easy to fix.

First, locate php-fpm configuration file by running a configuration test:

php-fpm -t

You should see an output like:

/usr/local/etc/php/5.3/php-fpm.conf

Now open the php-fpm.conf file in your favorite editor and find a configuration option that looks like:

; Send FPM to background. Set to 'no' to keep FPM in foreground for debugging.
; Default Value: yes
daemonize = no

and change the value to “yes”, or comment the configuration out (since default is “yes”).

That’s it!