How to include MSSQL drivers for PHP in Google App Engine - php

Question

I am building an app (PHP/Laravel) that is supposed to be deployed on Google's App Engine. One of the components of the app is to be able to connect to an MSSQL server. Everything worked fine when I was debugging it, but as soon as I deployed it to the App Engine - guess what? It does not work (error: could not find driver).
I went through the Google documentation and I found out that the MSSQL drivers (pdo_sqlsrv, sqlsrv) are not enabled nor available in the standard environment. I checked the flexible environment, but that's the same. The difference is that I can use my own runtime using Dockerfile.
I changed two lines of my app.yaml in the root directory:
runtime: custom
env: flex
Then I created my Dockerfile also in the root directory that was supposed to install sqlsrv and pdo_sqlsrv using PECL and enable it:
FROM gcr.io/google-appengine/php72:latest
ARG COMPOSER_FLAGS='--prefer-dist --ignore-platform-reqs --optimize-autoloader'
ENV COMPOSER_FLAGS=${COMPOSER_FLAGS}
ENV SWOOLE_VERSION=4.3.4
ENV DOCUMENT_ROOT=/app/public
ENV ACCEPT_EULA=Y
COPY . $APP_DIR
RUN apt-get update -y \
&& curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add -\
&& curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/prod.list > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-release.list \
&& apt-get update -y \
&& apt-get install -y \
unzip \
autoconf \
build-essential \
libmcrypt-dev \
libmpdec-dev \
libpq-dev \
unixodbc-dev \
msodbcsql17 \
mssql-tools \
php-common \
&& apt-get update \
&& pecl install \
decimal \
sqlsrv \
pdo_sqlsrv \
xdebug \
&& apt-get update \
&& phpenmod sqlsrv pdo_sqlsrv \
&& curl -o /tmp/swoole.tar.gz https://github.com/swoole/swoole-src/archive/v$SWOOLE_VERSION.tar.gz -L \
&& tar zxvf /tmp/swoole.tar.gz \
&& cd swoole-src* \
&& phpize \
&& ./configure \
--enable-coroutine \
--enable-async-redis \
--enable-coroutine-postgresql \
--enable-sqlsrv=static --with-pdo_sqlsrv=static \
&& make \
&& make install \
&& chown -R www-data.www-data $APP_DIR \
&& /build-scripts/composer.sh;
ENTRYPOINT ["/build-scripts/entrypoint.sh"]
CMD ["/usr/bin/supervisord", "-c", "/etc/supervisor/supervisord.conf"]
EXPOSE 8080
I also have my own php.ini with two lines in the root directory:
extension = pdo_sqlsrv.so
extension = sqlsrv.so
According to the Google documentation, having this file in the root of an app will extend/replace their default php.ini with my configuration. However, I only found this statement in the docs for non-custom runtimes. I tested it out by changing the value of display_errors and then phpinfo(). The display_errors was still set to the default value and get_loaded_extensions() didn't display sqlsrv nor pdo_sqlsrv.
I checked the build-log and it seems that the drivers were properly installed, because in the 3714 lines I found:
Installing '/opt/php72/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20170718/sqlsrv.so'
install ok: channel://pecl.php.net/sqlsrv-5.8.1
.....
Installing '/opt/php72/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20170718/pdo_sqlsrv.so'
install ok: channel://pecl.php.net/pdo_sqlsrv-5.8.1
.....
configuration option "php_ini" is not set to php.ini location
You should add "extension=sqlsrv.so" to php.ini
configuration option "php_ini" is not set to php.ini location
You should add "extension=pdo_sqlsrv.so" to php.ini
Does anybody have any experience with this, please? What do I need to change in the Dockerfile to make Google App Engine enable the PHP extensions?

Answer 1

TL;DR: Add COPY php.ini /opt/php/lib/conf.d/ to Dockerfile.
Google documentation for GAE Standard environment says that you can place php.ini into the root directory, but I didn't find anything like that about Flexible env. Indeed, if you check Configuration File in phpinfo, and related. fields, they show other paths they're looking for php.ini, so you need to place the file there.
When I try that, the custom php.ini is loaded and allows overwriting display_errors, which you mentioned didn't work for you.
Multi-stage build
To avoid shipping C compiler and other build tools to production, which is wasteful and may slow down deployment of your app, you should also use docker's multi-stage build. Basically, you'll build the extensions in one "builder" container and copy the compiled result to the production container.
You Dockerfile will look sth like this:
FROM gcr.io/google-appengine/php72:latest AS builder
RUN apt-get update -y \
&& apt-get install -y \
unzip \
autoconf \
build-essential \
libmcrypt-dev \
libmpdec-dev \
libpq-dev \
unixodbc-dev \
php-common \
&& pecl install \
sqlsrv \
pdo_sqlsrv
FROM gcr.io/google-appengine/php72:latest
# Copy extensions from builder above
ENV PHP_EXT_DIR=/opt/php/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20170718/
COPY --from=builder $PHP_EXT_DIR/sqlsrv.so $PHP_EXT_DIR/
COPY --from=builder $PHP_EXT_DIR/pdo_sqlsrv.so $PHP_EXT_DIR/
# Install runtime dependencies
ENV ACCEPT_EULA=Y
RUN curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | apt-key add -\
&& curl https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/16.04/prod.list > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mssql-release.list \
&& apt-get update -y \
&& apt-get install -y \
msodbcsql17 \
mssql-tools
...