This was presented as a normal setup of PHP, but in reality was something completely different. Nobody runs PHP like this. This used the dev server in PHP and proxied requests from nginx to the php http dev server. Literally the first thing in the php docs about the dev server is:
"Warning
This web server is designed to aid application development. It may also be useful for testing purposes or for application demonstrations that are run in controlled environments. It is not intended to be a full-featured web server. It should not be used on a public network."
It's also singel threaded and very slow, so that explains why the site was so damn unusable.
It's a shame, as a realistic setup would be much more informative.
"Warning This web server is designed to aid application development. It may also be useful for testing purposes or for application demonstrations that are run in controlled environments. It is not intended to be a full-featured web server. It should not be used on a public network."
It's also singel threaded and very slow, so that explains why the site was so damn unusable.
It's a shame, as a realistic setup would be much more informative.