How do I restart my Faaaster site?

The Actions menu, in the bar at the top of the site screen, lets you restart the processes or the whole server. A Restart button is also available in the Performance tab: it restarts the server.

Two levels of restart

The Actions menu offers exactly two restart options:

• Restart PHP / Nginx — restarts the web processes. It's the light option, almost instant, and enough in most cases.
• Restart server — restarts the whole container. Longer, to keep for cases where the first one didn't change anything.

The same menu also gives access to DB credentials, the DB Client, the File editor and SSH / SFTP access.

When should you restart?

• After a server configuration change that needs to be picked up.
• When the site responds poorly or not at all, before digging further.

Restart PHP / Nginx briefly interrupts service. Visitors who are browsing may see an error for a few seconds. Restart server, on the other hand, keeps your production site online as long as the zero-downtime switchover is possible (see below).

How long does it take?

Restart PHP / Nginx takes a few seconds: the web processes are restarted and the opcode cache is cleared, without touching the environment.

Restart server recreates the whole environment, which takes longer. On your production site, the new environment is prepared alongside, then the site switches over to it: it stays online, and a "Server restart — zero-downtime update" banner is displayed during the operation, while server changes are suspended. On a development environment, on the Dev plan, or if the zero-downtime switchover isn't possible, the site restarts and remains unavailable during the restart. A PHP version change goes through the same mechanism.

Which one should you choose?

Always start with PHP / Nginx: it's the light option, and it solves most cases — a temporary error, a file edited over SSH that isn't picked up, an inconsistent opcode cache.

Only restart the server if the first one didn't change anything.

⚠️ Before Restart PHP / Nginx, Faaaster tests the nginx configuration. If a file you edited in the conf folder is invalid, the restart is cancelled and the site keeps running with the old configuration. The interface then shows "Invalid nginx configuration — restart aborted. Fix the configuration:", followed by the error details returned by nginx; the message stays on screen until you close it. This is a safeguard — a restart on a broken configuration would leave the site unreachable. Fix or remove that file, then try again. For any other error, the interface shows "An error occurred while processing your request".

👉 My site is unreachable · How do I change the PHP version?

Updated on: 10/03/2026