Monit is correctly detecting that php5-fpm is unavailable as seen in the logs. However, it does not seem to be able to restart the service.
log:
[EDT Jun 11 18:04:20] error : 'php5-fpm' failed, cannot open a connection to UNIX[/var/run/php5-fpm.sock]
[EDT Jun 11 18:04:20] info : 'php5-fpm' trying to restart
[EDT Jun 11 18:04:20] info : 'php5-fpm' stop: /etc/init.d/php5-fpm
[EDT Jun 11 18:04:50] error : 'php5-fpm' failed to stop
and here is the configuration for monit
check process php5-fpm with pidfile /var/run/php5-fpm.pid
group php #change accordingly
start program = "/etc/init.d/php5-fpm start"
stop program = "/etc/init.d/php5-fpm stop"
if failed unixsocket /var/run/php5-fpm.sock then restart
manually restarting php5-fpm with "service php5-fpm restart" clears this error until it happens again.
The server is ubuntu 14.04. PHP 5.6.9