PHP 8.4.0 RC2 available for testing

Apache 2.x on Unix systems

This section contains notes and hints specific to Apache 2.x installs of PHP on Unix systems.

Warning

We do not recommend using a threaded MPM in production with Apache 2. Use the prefork MPM, which is the default MPM with Apache 2.0 and 2.2. For information on why, read the related FAQ entry on using Apache2 with a threaded MPM

The » Apache Documentation is the most authoritative source of information on the Apache 2.x server. More information about installation options for Apache may be found there.

The most recent version of Apache HTTP Server may be obtained from » Apache download site, and a fitting PHP version from the above mentioned places. This quick guide covers only the basics to get started with Apache 2.x and PHP. For more information read the » Apache Documentation. The version numbers have been omitted here, to ensure the instructions are not incorrect. In the examples below, 'NN' should be replaced with the specific version of Apache being used.

There are currently two versions of Apache 2.x - there's 2.4 and 2.2. While there are various reasons for choosing each, 2.4 is the current latest version, and the one that is recommended, if that option is available to you. However, the instructions here will work for either 2.4 or 2.2. Note that Apache httpd 2.2 is officially End Of Life, and no new development or patches are being issued for it.

  1. Obtain the Apache HTTP server from the location listed above, and unpack it:

    tar -xzf httpd-2.x.NN.tar.gz
    
  2. Likewise, obtain and unpack the PHP source:

    tar -xzf php-NN.tar.gz
    
  3. Build and install Apache. Consult the Apache install documentation for more details on building Apache.

    cd httpd-2_x_NN
    ./configure --enable-so
    make
    make install
    
  4. Now you have Apache 2.x.NN available under /usr/local/apache2, configured with loadable module support and the standard MPM prefork. To test the installation use your normal procedure for starting the Apache server, e.g.:

    /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start
    
    and stop the server to go on with the configuration for PHP:
    /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl stop
    

  5. Now, configure and build PHP. This is where you customize PHP with various options, like which extensions will be enabled. Run ./configure --help for a list of available options. In our example we'll do a simple configure with Apache 2 and MySQL support.

    If you built Apache from source, as described above, the below example will match your path for apxs, but if you installed Apache some other way, you'll need to adjust the path to apxs accordingly. Note that some distros may rename apxs to apxs2.

    cd ../php-NN
    ./configure --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-pdo-mysql
    make
    make install
    

    If you decide to change your configure options after installation, you'll need to re-run the configure, make, and make install steps. You only need to restart apache for the new module to take effect. A recompile of Apache is not needed.

    Note that unless told otherwise, make install will also install » PEAR, various PHP tools such as phpize, install the PHP CLI, and more.

  6. Setup your php.ini.

    cp php.ini-development /usr/local/lib/php.ini
    

    You may edit your .ini file to set PHP options. If you prefer having php.ini in another location, use --with-config-file-path=/some/path in step 5.

    If you instead choose php.ini-production, be certain to read the list of changes within, as they affect how PHP behaves.

  7. Edit your httpd.conf to load the PHP module. The path on the right hand side of the LoadModule statement must point to the path of the PHP module on your system. The make install from above may have already added this for you, but be sure to check.

    For PHP 8:

    LoadModule php_module modules/libphp.so

    For PHP 7:

    LoadModule php7_module modules/libphp7.so
  8. Tell Apache to parse certain extensions as PHP. For example, let's have Apache parse .php files as PHP. Instead of only using the Apache AddType directive, we want to avoid potentially dangerous uploads and created files such as exploit.php.jpg from being executed as PHP. Using this example, you could have any extension(s) parse as PHP by simply adding them. We'll add .php to demonstrate.

    <FilesMatch \.php$>
        SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
    </FilesMatch>

    Or, if we wanted to allow .php, .php2, .php3, .php4, .php5, .php6, and .phtml files to be executed as PHP, but nothing else, we'd use this:

    <FilesMatch "\.ph(p[2-6]?|tml)$">
        SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
    </FilesMatch>

    And to allow .phps files to be handled by the php source filter, and displayed as syntax-highlighted source code, use this:

    <FilesMatch "\.phps$">
        SetHandler application/x-httpd-php-source
    </FilesMatch>

    mod_rewrite may be used to allow any arbitrary .php file to be displayed as syntax-highlighted source code, without having to rename or copy it to a .phps file:

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteRule (.*\.php)s$ $1 [H=application/x-httpd-php-source]

    The php source filter should not be enabled on production systems, where it may expose confidential or otherwise sensitive information embedded in source code.

  9. Use your normal procedure for starting the Apache server, e.g.:

    /usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start
    

    OR

    service httpd restart
    

Following the steps above you will have a running Apache2 web server with support for PHP as a SAPI module. Of course, there are many more configuration options available for Apache and PHP. For more information type ./configure --help in the corresponding source tree.

Apache may be built multithreaded by selecting the worker MPM, rather than the standard prefork MPM, when Apache is built. This is done by adding the following option to the argument passed to ./configure, in step 3 above:

--with-mpm=worker

This should not be undertaken without being aware of the consequences of this decision, and having at least a fair understanding of the implications. The Apache documentation regarding » MPM-Modules discusses MPMs in a great deal more detail.

Note:

The Apache MultiViews FAQ discusses using multiviews with PHP.

Note:

To build a multithreaded version of Apache, the target system must support threads. In this case, PHP should also be built with Zend Thread Safety (ZTS). Under this configuration, not all extensions will be available. The recommended setup is to build Apache with the default prefork MPM-Module.

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User Contributed Notes 2 notes

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16
nmmm at nmmm dot nu
15 years ago
When I upgrade to apache 2.2, this:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php5
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php42
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php4
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php3
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtm
AddType application/x-httpd-php .phtml
AddType application/x-httpd-php .asp

...does not worked for me, so I did this:

<FilesMatch "\.(php*|phtm|phtml|asp|aspx)$">
SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
</FilesMatch>

Another interesting point with Apache 2.2 is following.
Let suppose we installed PHP as module. But for some directory, we need to use PHP as CGI (probably because of custom configuration). This can be done using:

<FilesMatch "\.(php*|phtm|phtml|asp|aspx)$">
SetHandler none
</FilesMatch>

AddType application/x-httpd-php-custom .php
Action application/x-httpd-php-custom /cgi-bin/php-huge

Note type must be different than "application/x-httpd-php" and also you need to deactivate the handler on sertain extention. You can do mixed configuration:

<FilesMatch "\.(php)$">
SetHandler none
</FilesMatch>

AddType application/x-httpd-php-custom .php
Action application/x-httpd-php-custom /cgi-bin/php-huge

in such case files like *.php5 and so on will be parsed via module, but *.php will go to php-huge executable.
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8
Morning Star
1 year ago
I had just installed php8.1.12 on a machine used for writing C code.

Below are some libraries that I needed to download on a debian-based OS.

apt-get install libpcre3 libpcre3-dev
apt-get install apache2-dev
apt-get install libxml2-dev
apt-get install libsqlite3-dev

These were the missing packages that I required.
If you get an error regarding a missing package or library, for example when I needed sqlite3, run the command:

apt search sqlite3

And you'll be able to see if there's any dev or lib packages.

The apache2 instructions worked flawlessly at the time of php8.1.12; and in order to get certain requirements for an application, I had to run the php configure file like so:

./configure --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs --with-pdo-mysql --with-mysqli --with-zip --enable-gd

The extra flags allowed me to use both types of mysql, allowed me to utilize PHP zip archiving, and allowed me to use Gnatt stuff.
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