How to install PHP in different environment

Creating and running PHG Web applications in a satisfactory way implies that you are running (or have access to) a web server upon which server PHP is (can be) installed, and that the installation ha been tested and runs properly. It also implies that the PHP has been (or can be) configured to support needs of your PHP programs. There are a couple scenarios under which these requirements can be achieved.

• You are running a desktop or server machine, operating system, and web server compatible with PHP and PHP has been installed and configured.
• You are running a desktop or server machine connected to the internet, with access to web hosting account supported by a web server with which PHP has been installed and configured.

Installing PHP5 with Linux and Apache

The combination of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP is probably the most common production environment for running PHP web servers. This combination of open-source software has been referred to by the acronym LAMP. If you run the same combination of software, you can benefit from the experiences of many other peoples who have used these setup.

Setting up Apache for PHP

To install apache, use RPMs or download and compile the source code. But apache probably comes with your Linux distribution, and may already be properly installed.

If you are using linux visually (running KDE, for example) click the httpd service to see whether it is running. If it is not, start it, and then open your browser and enter http://localhost, you should see a main web page.

If Apache is not already installed and running, you can use these commands for installing it from the terminal

lynx http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

gzip –d httpd-2_0_NN.tar.gz

tar –d httpd-2_0_NN.tar

./configure –prefix=PREFIX

make

make install

vi PREFIX/conf/httpd.conf

PREFIX/bin/apachectl start

You must replace the NN with minor version number, and PREFIX with the correct path in which you’d like to install Apache( the default is /usr/local/apache2).

Configuring Apache to run PHP5

If PHP5 is installed as a DSO( as the example installation was), you need to check the Apache configuration file(named httpd.conf) to make sure it has several entries. In the Fedora installation you can find the httpd.conf file in the /etc/httpd/conf folder. Open any text editor and let’s modify the httpd.conf file.

 First ensure that PHP is enabled on your Apache server. Look for a lot of lines that begin with the word LoadModule. Among them you should find a line like this

LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/apche/lib/libphp5.so

If there is not such a line, you need to add one; or if the path is wrong, you need to correct it. Find out whether the PHP compiled put your libphp5.so file. Open Konqueror and choose Tools->Find File. My installation put the libphp5.so file in

/usr/lib/httpd/modules

You need this information to tell Apache how to run PHP scripts. In the Apache configuration file httpd.conf, add the LoadModule instruction to load PHP5, put it after any of other LoadModule lines, using the path you just obtained:

LoadModule php5_module                          /usr/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so

Now that Apache know how to load PHP5, you need to activate PHP5 in Apache. There is a section further down the file consisting of lots of lines beginning with AddModule. If you find a ClearModulesList line in the file, you add the following line to the file. Although it does not matter whether you put it, it makes sense to loacet it near other AddModule lines for easy access in the future.

AddModule mod_php5.c

The AddModule line is not required unless you have ClearModuleList line.

Finally, you tell apache how to recognize a php program by its extension. Further down the document are some directives that begin AddType. To the end of these, add the following line

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

This tells apache that all files that ending with .php is PHP programs. No you are done so save the file and restart your web server.

Install the Apache2 Web server on Windows

The software to install is available for download from http://www.apache.org/

What you want is their HTTP Server project at http://httpd.apache.org/. Install the current version of Apache web server. The current version available as of December’2004 is 2.0.52. The default installation directory would be C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2.

To control Apache manually, follow this chain:

Programs -> Apache HTTP Server -> Control Apache Server

The choices for Windows 9x include Start Apache In Console whereas choices for Windows >= 2k usually include Start, Stop and Restart.

For Windows >= 2k, it's likely that the Apache service will start automatically after its installation and restart whenever you reboot the computer. For Windows 9x you have to control it manually.

Configuring Apache

I want to make my default web server directory would be c:\topxml_demo. So you first create the directory. All of the Apache configuration settings are defined in the file httpd.conf in the conf subdirectory of Apache:

C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf

From the programs menu you can edit this file as follows:

Apache HTTP Server -> Configure Apache Server -> Edit httpd.conf

(I would recommend making .conf files one of Textpad's associated files). Edit httpd.conf and make the following changes:

Set up the mapping of the URL http://localhost/default to C:\ topxml_demo. Go to the end of the file and add the line:

Alias /default/ "C:/topxml_demo /"

Allow ExecCGIpriviledges as default. Search for this section.

# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive...

<Directory />

    Options FollowSymLinks

    AllowOverride None

</Directory>

Change the "Options" line to this:

Options FollowSymLinksExecCGI Indexes

Uncomment the line:

AddHandlercgi-script .cgi

Add the line

DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.varindex.cgi

To test your web server create a test.htm file and put it in the c:\topxml_demo directory and enter the following URL in your web browser.

http://localhost/default/test.htm

You can see the content of you test.htm

Install Php with Apache2 on Windows

I now assume that you have already configured your Apache web server and also created your default directory as per instructions give in the above section.

Download PHP binary or zip installation file from http://php.net. The best way to install is to use zip file. Unzip your PHP zip installation file into c:\php4 or c:\php5 depending upon whether you are going to install php4 or php5.

Go into c:\php4 or c:\php5 and copy the file php4ts.dll (this is PHP4 version) or php5ts.dll (This is PHP5 version) into the following folder:

Copy php.ini-dist to php.ini and then make the following edits to php.ini:

1. Look for the magic_quotes_gpc setting ("gpc" means for GET/POST/Cookie values).
2. magic_quotes_gpc = On

and turn it off by rewriting

magic_quotes_gpc = Off

3. Create a folder by the name "tmp" within the "c:/php" folder. Then look for the line in the session section:
4. session.save_path = /tmp and set it to the directory you just created: session.save_path = c:/php/tmp

After making these modifications to php.ini, copy this file into the following folder:

Now edit the Apache2 configuration file httpd.conf in two places (you can choose this from the Apache2 menu).

1. Find the line DirectoryIndex which defines the root file within a directory and add index.php to the line, making it
2. DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.varindex.cgiindex.php
3. Go to the end of the file and add these lines for PHP4

         LoadModule php4_module c:/php/sapi/php4apache2.dll

         Or

         LoadModule php5_module C:/PHP5.03/php5apache2.dll

         Ensure that above dll file is available in the directory.

4. AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Be careful to get the wording exactly correct.

Test You PHP application.

Create a test.php file with following content and put this file in the c:\topxml_demo\php directory

<html>

  <head>

    <title>Hello PHP

  </head>

  <body>

  <?php

      echo "Hello PHP";

  ?>

  </body>

</html>

Enter following URL in your browser

http://localhost/default/php/hello.php

Output

Hello PHP