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I want to be able to run multiple php versions on my development box running Ubuntu 12.04. What I want to accomplish is that when I use localhost as a domain a default is used (let's say php 5.3.17). When I use 547.localhost as domain php 5.4.7 is used. I've seen some tutorials to get this working using fastcgi but until now I haven't been able to get it to work. I've looked at these tutorials:

  1. http://dbforch.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/apache2-fastcgi-multiple-php-versions-ubuntulucid-10-04/
  2. http://www.metod.si/multiple-php-versions-with-apache-2-fastcgi-phpfarm-on-ubuntu/

For as far as I can see I have done everything that is needed. The problem is that php simply doesn't run. When I go to http://localhost/somephpfile.php it just outputs the source of the php file. The same for http://547.localhost/somephpfile.php.

I'll break down what steps I took in the hope that someone is able to spot what I missed.

  1. First I installed a default lamp stack using sudo apt-get install lamp-server^ phpmyadmin. After this, I had a working development server running the repository version of php.

  2. Then I used phpfarm to create two php installs, one for 5.3.17 and one for 5.4.7. The localion of phpfarm is /etc/php/phpfarm, so the executables are in /etc/php/phpfarm/inst/php-{version}/bin

  3. Then I enable suaxec and fastcgi for apache and disable mod_php with sudo a2enmod fastcgi actions suexec && sudo a2dismod php5

  4. Next, I edited /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/fastcgi.conf to read:

    <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>   
    FastCgiIpcDir /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi  
    FastCgiWrapper /usr/lib/apache2/suexec   FastCgiConfig -idle-timeout
    110 -killInterval 120 -pass-header HTTP_AUTHORIZATION -autoUpdate  
    ScriptAlias /php-fcgi/ /var/www/cgi-bin/ 
</IfModule>

  5. Then in /var/www/ I created a folder cgi-bin and in this folder two files, for each of the two php versions as follows (I show only the one for 5.3.17 /var/www/php5317.fcgi):

    #!/bin/sh
# you can change the PHP version here.
version="5.3.17"
# php.ini file location, */php-5.2.13/lib equals */php-5.2.13/lib/php.ini.
PHPRC=/etc/php/phpfarm/inst/php-${version}/lib/php.ini
export PHPRC

PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=3
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN

PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS

# which php-cgi binary to execute
exec /etc/php/phpfarm/inst/php-${version}/bin/php-cgi

  6. The last step was to create virtual hosts. In the end I have three files in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled: 000-default, php5.3.17 and php5.4.7 With the following contents:

    default:

    <VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName localhost
  DocumentRoot /var/www
  <Directory "/var/www">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
    AddHandler php-cgi .php
    Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php5317.fcgi
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

    php5.3.17:

    <VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName 5317.localhost
  DocumentRoot /var/www
  <Directory "/var/www">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
    AddHandler php-cgi .php
    Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php5317.fcgi
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

    php5.4.7:

    <VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName 547.localhost
  DocumentRoot /var/www
  <Directory "/var/www">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
    AllowOverride All
    Order allow,deny
    allow from all
    AddHandler php-cgi .php
    Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php547.fcgi
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

  7. Finally I changed /etc/hosts to read

    127.0.0.1   localhost
127.0.0.1   547.localhost
127.0.0.1   5317.localhost

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters

Now I would expect things to work, but sadly they don't. Instead of that, a php file runs through php it just outputs the raw file.

There must be something I missed here, but I have gone through the process many times and I can't figure out where it goes wrong.

Andhi Irawan
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SeeDoubleYou
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  • 1 thing I encountered was that if I named the cgi files like you did it did not work. Try renaming `/var/www/cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.4.7` to `/var/www/cgi-bin/php54.fcgi` for example or just `/var/www/cgi-bin/php.fcgi`. Can u check if that helps? Just for the 5.4.7 version. –  Sep 25 '12 at 12:14
  • I have checked and unfortunately this doesn't help. I have changed the virtualhost to reflect this change as well so the the action line read `Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php547.fcgi` –  Sep 25 '12 at 12:21
  • I've updated the post to reflect these changes since I think is good to have it like that anyway –  Sep 25 '12 at 12:31
  • Hmm, I'll check for other posibilities then. :) –  Sep 25 '12 at 12:32
  • I was wondering, probably I don't need the suexec stuff since I don't need different users for each php version right? –  Sep 25 '12 at 13:34
  • You wouldn't believe how stupid I feel at this point. It works, and it would't because I used instead of –  Sep 25 '12 at 13:47
  • Ha! Nice catch! Good to know the tutorial still works. ;) –  Sep 25 '12 at 13:54
  • There is however one more strange thing. localhost/phpmyadmin doesn't go to phpmyadmin anymore. Instead it just outputs the raw index.php file. I think I remember reading somewhere that suexec doesn't allow for anything to be outside the /var/www folder (or actually the root set for suexec and it doesn't allow symlinks. Php is of course outside this folder since it is an install from the ubuntu repositories. – SeeDoubleYou Sep 25 '12 at 19:25
  • Phpmyadmin is "fixed" when I add `AddHandler php-cgi .php` and `Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php5317.fcgi` to its apache.conf. The things is now that I cannot login to mysql from phpmyadmin. I don't know whether this has anything to do with this setup, but it did work before I started with the whole fastcgi part – SeeDoubleYou Sep 25 '12 at 21:09
  • Actually, mysql has stopped working completely, it fails with this error `[2002] No such file or directory (trying to connect via unix:///tmp/mysql.sock)`. – SeeDoubleYou Sep 26 '12 at 07:00

2 Answers2

2

In your virtualhosts you added a handler, but you didn't set the handler which is why it isn't processed. Add:

<FilesMatch "\.php$">
    SetHandler php-cgi
</FilesMatch>

before </Directory> in each virtual hosts file.

user138869
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I liked this short step-by-step overview by SeeDoubleYou and wanted to try it myself. What was missing was

  • sudo chmod +x /var/www/cgi-bin/*
    • Since this wasn't executed, apache wasn't able to execute the cgi scripts
    • This is needed for the line Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php<version>.fcgi in the vhost.conf file
  • sudo apt-get install apache2-suexec-pristine libapache2-mod-fastcgi
    • suexec executable and fastcgi module were missing, they had to be installed first
    • The suexec executable is needed for the line FastCgiWrapper /usr/lib/apache2/suexec in the fastcgi.conf file
  • I also had to remove the line FastCgiIpcDir /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi
    • otherwise I got the error message FastCgiIpcDir /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi: already defined as "/var/lib/apache2/fastcgi"

For anyone trying to set php_admin_value and php_value via .htaccess or vhosts files: This isn't possible with FCGI. Instead you can use .user.ini files to set directory specific php.ini configurations.

Elektropepi
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