FastCGIExternalServer, path used actually has to exist

Hi there,

I have spent the best part of 2 days trying to configure mod_fastcgi
2.4.6 within Apache 2.2.9 (Debian Lenny) but with no luck; I've read
and read the documentation and it clearly states that the path used
with 'FastCGIExternalServer' does not have to exist, however I have
found the opposite to be true.

This is the configuration that I am currently using, which is to use
Apache2 with mod_fastcgi and PHP 5.3.3 with FPM

$ cat /etc/apache2/mods-available/fastcgi.conf
/etc/apache2/sites-available/foo.example.com
<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
        FastCgiWrapper /usr/lib/apache2/suexec

        ## PHP-FPM
        AddHandler php53-fpm .php
        Action php53-fpm /fcgi-bin/php53-fpm
        <Location /fcgi-bin/php53-fpm>
                Order Deny,Allow
                Deny from all
                Allow from env=REDIRECT_STATUS
                Options ExecCGI
        </Location>
</IfModule>

<VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName foo.example.com

        SuexecUserGroup foobar foobar

        ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/vhosts/foo.example.com_error.log
        CustomLog /var/log/apache2/vhosts/foo.example.com_access.log combined
        DocumentRoot /home/foobar/domains/foo.example.com/public

        ## FastCGI + PHP-FPM
        FastCGIExternalServer /home/foobar/fcgi/php53-fpm -socket
/var/opt/php53/run/www.sock -user foobar -group foobar
        Alias /fcgi-bin/ /home/foobar/fcgi/

        <Directory /home/foobar/domains/foo.example.com/public>
                Options FollowSymLinks -Indexes
                AllowOverride AuthConfig FileInfo Limit Options

                Order Deny,Allow
                Allow from all
        </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

This works just fine, and I can run PHP scripts through php-fpm.
However I have had to create the file "/home/foobar/fcgi/php53-fpm"
which contains nothing. I have tried playing around with the
FastCGIExternalServer and Alias values so that it doesn't point to a
file on the filesystem, which is stated as possible at
http://www.fastcgi.com/docs/faq.html#FastCGIExternalServer

I really can not get it to work without the dummy file. Can someone
please confirm if the documentation is incorrect, or am I doing
something wrong?

Regards,