FOLLOW UP to comment on speed
Now using --
mongo 3.0.1 pre-compiled binaries
using mongo/php-1.6.6. driver from PECL
on php 5.6.0
on apache 2.4
on debian wheezy 7.8
Dropped in mongo 301 binaries
everything else unchanged
restarted apache
instantly started getting "No candidate servers found"
upgraded to mongo/php-1.6.6 driver on pecl
same result
of these four parms to \MongoClient()
A) 'mongodb:///tmp/mongodb-27017.sock'
B) #'mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017'
C) #'mongodb://localhost:27017'
D) #'mongodb://pri.eastghost.com:27017'
A) used to be 100x to 200x faster than B), C) and maybe 400x faster than D), as explained in comment below, but initially (after mongo 3.0.1 drop-in) A) stopped dead. Tried B, instantly began working. Went back to A), kept working. Almost seems as if driver 1.6.6 can not populate candidate servers list when called via unix socket (/tmp/mongodb-27017.sock), but once the list is populated, calling via unix socket magically works fine.
While screwing around with this, all else unchanged, we're now noticing B) and C) seem to be as fast as A), and D) is only slightly slower (due to connect over WAN, instead of local LAN). This behavior is as it theoretically should be: Maybe the once huge difference in the mongo php driver between unix sockets and localhost has been fixed? Still testing -- will report back if any slowdown noticed.
see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mongodb-user/RTBDDMwywzA