i'm not sure where the problem lies. I have:

centos 6 mysql php php-fpm wordpress (1 site).

this is a dedicated server i'm learning on.

as soon as i ran the web url the memory slammed to 125% of a 512k server, i had to upgrade to 1gig, so i'm not sure where the problem lies. I thought by switching to nginx from apache i would have more memory free, but i'm still stuck with the problem.

before launching the site with nginx and mysqld running the site was about 5% memory.

I reanamed my "my-small.cnf" to my.cnf and put in my /etc folder where the original was, but that seems not to have done it.

after looking at my TOP results, i'm starting to think it may be php-fpm eating my memory, but not sure.

is php-fpm the preferend way or is there something better to use. I read about possible memory leaks in php-fpm.

here is what i have:

php-fpm.conf

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; FPM Configuration ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; All relative paths in this configuration file are relative to PHP's install
; prefix.

; Include one or more files. If glob(3) exists, it is used to include a bunch of
; files from a glob(3) pattern. This directive can be used everywhere in the
; file.
include=/etc/php-fpm.d/*.conf

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Global Options ;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

[global]
; Pid file
; Default Value: none
pid = /var/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.pid

; Error log file
; Default Value: /var/log/php-fpm.log
error_log = /var/log/php-fpm/error.log

; Log level
; Possible Values: alert, error, warning, notice, debug
; Default Value: notice
;log_level = notice

; If this number of child processes exit with SIGSEGV or SIGBUS within the time
; interval set by emergency_restart_interval then FPM will restart. A value
; of '0' means 'Off'.
; Default Value: 0
;emergency_restart_threshold = 0

; Interval of time used by emergency_restart_interval to determine when 
; a graceful restart will be initiated.  This can be useful to work around
; accidental corruptions in an accelerator's shared memory.
; Available Units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays)
; Default Unit: seconds
; Default Value: 0
;emergency_restart_interval = 0

; Time limit for child processes to wait for a reaction on signals from master.
; Available units: s(econds), m(inutes), h(ours), or d(ays)
; Default Unit: seconds
; Default Value: 0
;process_control_timeout = 0

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

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
; Pool Definitions ; 
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

; See /etc/php-fpm.d/*.conf

end php-fpm.conf