The init script of php-fpm has opts="reload", but lacks a reload section. According to http://svn.php.net/repository/php/php-src/trunk/sapi/fpm/init.d.php-fpm.in , we want to send a USR2 on reload. Also, gracefull kill seems to be SIGQUIT, but that doesn't work for me. Also, perhaps the name "FastCGI Process Manager" is a better name (well, upstream uses it) for ebegin than the current "PHP FastCGI server"
As i mentioned in #348628 - perhaps configtest could fit in there too? I will take a stab at the script tomorrow.
php-fpm-r3.init now has a reload section