What could cause apache2 to not run index.php files through PHP FastCGI handler?

Question

I'm trying to run PHP using FastCGI (mod-fcgid) under apache 2 with the worker MPM. I've used this blog post as a reference.

It seems I've got everything working except one thing:

When apache serves index.php implicitly (using mod_dir, I think), it does not use the configured handler for .php files, and just serves the PHP file as if it's static content.

However, when I add the index.php part manually to the URL, it does use the handler correctly and everything seems to work. Other PHP files work fine too.

To clarify:

http://example.com/ serves the PHP source file itself.
http://example.com/index.php correctly runs the PHP through the FastCGI handler, and serves the dynamic content.

What could cause this? Any hints are appreciated!

Edit: Some more details: this is on an Ubuntu intrepid system.

I got .php working in FastCGI by adding the two PHP lines to mods-enabled/fcgid.conf, so it now looks like:

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
  AddHandler    fcgid-script .fcgi
  IPCConnectTimeout 20
  AddHandler fcgid-script .php
  FCGIWrapper /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5 .php
</IfModule>

Directory indices are configured in mods-enabled/dir.conf:

<IfModule mod_dir.c>
  DirectoryIndex index.html index.cgi index.pl index.php index.xhtml index.htm
</IfModule>

I didn't need to put Options +ExecCGI anywhere. Actually, I just tried commenting out the block in sites-enabled/000-default, and FastCGI PHP still works fine, except for implicit index.php

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 08 '09 at 22:29

Oh man, I've been very stupid.

Apparently I just had it misconfigured at one point in time, and my browser had cached the incorrect response.

http://example.com/index.php then worked, probably because I only started trying that after I had gotten FastCGI PHP working, so no incorrect response was in cache.

In other words, the information in my original question is a working configuration for mpm-worker + PHP in mod-fcgid!

Thanks for the effort anyway :-)

Dana the Sane · Answer 2 · 2009-06-08T21:22:13.480

1

I'm wondering whether your use of mod_index is by-passing the vhost for fastcgi (i.e. separate from the vhost that sets the use of the php handler).

edited Jun 08 '09 at 21:22

answered Jun 08 '09 at 21:06

Dana the Sane

828
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19

If DirectoryIndex weren't configured correctly, it wouldn't serve his index.php as a plaintext file, it'd fall back to an index. – chaos Jun 08 '09 at 21:09
Amended.________________________ – Dana the Sane Jun 08 '09 at 21:22
Added some more details to the question. – Tobi Jun 08 '09 at 21:55

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 08 '09 at 22:14

This is possibly silly, but try:

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
   AddHandler    fcgid-script .fcgi
   IPCConnectTimeout 20
   AddHandler fcgid-script .php
   FCGIWrapper /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5 .php
   DirectoryIndex index.php
</IfModule>

I've discovered a number of weirdness when Apache modules interact in odd ways. Certainly at times order in the config file is very important.

What could cause apache2 to not run index.php files through PHP FastCGI handler?

3 Answers3

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