First, we will start installing HHVM on Apache; later, we will do the same with NGINX.

Next, we will install HHVM on Apache2 using the official prebuilt package by Facebook. Run the following command on the shell:

echo "deb http://dl.hhvm.com/ubuntu wily main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hhvm.list

Before we can install HHVM, we need to authorize the package by installing a signed key:

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0x5a16e7281be7a449

Now we will update our Ubuntu system using the latest HHVM packages:

apt-get update && apt-get -y install hhvm

Once every HHVM package is installed, we can check whether everything is in order by running the following command on the shell:

hhvm --version

The output of this command is as follows:

root@mage2cookbook:~# hhvm --version
HipHop VM 3.10.1 (rel)

Since the setup of PHP-FPM, we have started using the internal port 9000 to handle all traffic on PHP. Now we will use the same port for HHVM. Stop PHP-FPM as it is still running and start HHVM using the following command from the shell:

service php7.0-fpm stop && service hhvm start

If you need to run dedicated HipHop code such as Hack (the default HipHop programming language) in the future, you may want to change your Apache configuration. Restart your Apache and HHVM server:

ProxyPassMatch ^/(.+\.(hh|php)(/.*)?)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000/var/www/html/$1

Now, let's check whether HHVM and Apache are working. Create a PHP file called hhvm.php in the /var/www/html directory:

<?php
if (defined('HHVM_VERSION')) {
  echo "HHVM";
} else {
  echo "PHP";
}

If you have followed steps 1 to 8, you will be able to see if HHVM works with your web server. Go to your favorite browser and search using your yourdomain.com/hhvm.php. You should now see a HHVM notice on your screen.

In newer versions of HHVM, the default phpinfo(); tag works just fine on your screen. Go to your favorite browser and search using your yourdomain.com/phpinfo.php:

If everything is working fine, we have completed the Apache HHVM setup. Now let's do the same for the NGINX and HHVM setup.

As we have already installed the HHVM packages in steps 1 to 5, we now need to combine them with NGINX.

Before we continue, it is important to use either a clean DigitalOcean Droplet with NGINX running or you can disable the Apache server using the following command from the shell:

service apache2 stop && service nginx start

The following is the content of NGINX configuration file:

server {
  listen       80;
  server_name  yourdomain.com;

  root   /var/www/html;
  index  index.php index.html;

  access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;
  error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log;

  location ~ \.(hh|php)$ {

    fastcgi_index index.php;
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
    fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    include        fastcgi_params;
  }

  location ~ /\.ht {
    deny  all;
  }
}

In the preceding example, we altered the location for PHP and Hack support:

location ~ \.(hh|php)$ {

You can now restart your NGINX and HHVM server to connect them using the follow command from the shell:

service nginx restart && service hhvm restart

Now let's check whether HHVM and NGINX are working. Create a PHP file called hhvm.php or use the one in the previous Apache HHVM setup in the /var/www/html directory:

<?php
if (defined('HHVM_VERSION')) {
  echo "HHVM";
} else {
  echo "PHP";
}