Tell Apache to use a specific PHP version installed using phpbrew - php

Question

I had the PHP, MySQL, and Apache stack installed for development. That installation is using configuration files from:
/etc/apache2/
/etc/php5/
Later I installed multiple PHP version using phpbrew. All versions are accessible and switchable from CLI. But Apache always stays on the default version that was not installed using phpbrew.
Here is a list of my installed PHP versions.
$ phpbrew list
Installed versions:
php-5.4.13 (/home/admin1/.phpbrew/php/php-5.4.13)
+default -- --with-bz2=/usr
php-5.5.5 (/home/admin1/.phpbrew/php/php-5.5.5)
php-5.3.27 (/home/admin1/.phpbrew/php/php-5.3.27)
I have tried changing configuration file paths so they point to phpbrew's PHP. But nothing seems to be working.
How can I tell Apache to use phpbrew's PHP version?

Answer 1

You need to build a PHP with apxs2:
1) Ensure your have installed sudo apt-get install apache2-dev.
2) Run phpbrew install 5.4.22 +apxs2=/usr/bin/apxs2
Then you should see the built module file in your Apache configuration file.

Answer 2

I scripted this, because it was annoying me.
By default phpbrew switch will change the CLI version. To update Apache, you will have to tell it to use the newly generated .so file. On Ubuntu this file will be created like /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp$VERSION.so.
For this .so file to be generated, you have to install PHP like:
phpbrew install php-5.6.16 +default +apxs2
Anyway, here's the shell script I use to switch PHP versions. The switch will fail if the .so file cannot be found, and it will request sudo privileges to restart Apache.
/home/luker/bin/phpbrewswitch
#!/usr/bin/env bash
VERSION=$1
SOFILE=/usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp$VERSION.so
CONFFILE5=/etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.load
CONFFILE7=/etc/apache2/mods-available/php7.load
source ~/.phpbrew/bashrc
if [ -f $SOFILE ]; then
phpbrew switch $VERSION
phpbrew list
if [[ $VERSION == 7* ]]; then
FILECONTENTS="LoadModule php7_module $SOFILE"
CONFFILE=$CONFFILE7
sudo a2enmod php7
sudo a2dismod php5
else
FILECONTENTS="LoadModule php5_module $SOFILE"
CONFFILE=$CONFFILE5
sudo a2enmod php5
sudo a2dismod php7
fi;
echo $FILECONTENTS > $CONFFILE
echo "AddType application/x-httpd-php .php" >> $CONFFILE
echo "Updated $CONFFILE"
sudo service apache2 restart
else
echo $VERSION "is not configured for apache"
phpbrew list
fi
Usage
Attempting to switch to a PHP version that wasn't built for Apache:
[21:02:55] luker [~]$ phpbrewswitch 5.4.45
5.4.45 is not configured for apache
php-5.6.16
php-5.6.10
* php-5.5.30
php-5.4.45
Successfully changing to a PHP version that has an existing .so file:
[21:03:55] luker [~]$ phpbrewswitch 5.6.16
* php-5.6.16
php-5.6.10
php-5.5.30
php-5.4.45
Updated /etc/apache2/mods-available/php5.load

Answer 3

Do look into Server Fault post How do I tell Apache which PHP to use?.
You need to specify the PHP version in Apache.

Answer 4

The solution I found for managing multiple PHP versions with an Apache server is to run PHP-FPM and FastCGI instead of mod_php. This way I can have multiple versions of PHP running, and select which sites on my development machine I want to run which version of PHP.
You will need to recompile your PHP versions with the +fpm phpbrew flag instead of +apxs2, start them with the phpbrew fpm start command, install the Apache libapache2-mod-fastcgi package, and probably disable apache mod_php - but it's pretty slick once it's working. I can test the same site with multiple versions of PHP just by configuring a different Virtual host pointing to the same code, but different PHP-FPM sockets.
Here's an example of an Apache 2.4 /etc/apache2/mods-enables/fastcgi.conf configuration file with 2 versions of PHP installed via phpbrew:
<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi
FastCgiIpcDir /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi
AddType application/x-httpd-fastphp5 .php
Action application/x-httpd-fastphp5 /php5-fcgi
# This is for php 5.6.28
FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php56-cgi -socket /home/{USERNAME}/.phpbrew/php/php-5.6.28/var/run/php-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization
# This is for php 7.0.13
FastCgiExternalServer /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php70-cgi -socket /home/{USERNAME}/.phpbrew/php/php-7.0.13/var/run/php-fpm.sock -pass-header Authorization
# this seems to be required by Apache 2.4.10
<Directory /usr/lib/cgi-bin>
Require all granted
</Directory>
</IfModule>
Then in your apache "site" Virtualhost configuration you can specify which PHP version to run with an Alias like so:
<VirtualHost *:80>
# ServerName, ServerAdmin, etc
DocumentRoot /var/www/my-site-code
# Then point the php5-fcgi handler to a specific version of PHP
# Here is PHP7, as defined in the fastcgi.conf file
Alias /php5-fcgi /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php70-cgi
</VirtualHost>

Answer 5

If phpbrew successfully installs php version with +apxs2 ext, you should have a new ".so" file it inside apache2's module library (usr/lib/apache2/modules, which is seen in /etc/apache2/mods-available/php*.load).
The .so file listed in those php*.load (either php5.load or php7.load) files is the version that gets loaded. To switch between a php5 and php7 version use a2enmod/a2dismod php5 php7.
You need to reload apache2 after changing the config : systemctl restart apache2. If php files are rendering as plain text, you need to either add this to the php*.load file:
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
OR to avoid having to edit the php load files everytime you install a new version, you can set this globally in your apache2 config file:
<FilesMatch \.php?>
SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
</FilesMatch>
These instructions are intended for a development server. My personal script for this:
#!/bin/bash
i=1
c=1
options=()
while [ $c -gt 0 ]
do
v=$(phpbrew list | sed -n "${i}p")
if [ -z "$v" ]; then
c=0
elif [ -n "$v" ]; then
options+=("$v")
fi
i=$[$i+1]
done
count=0
printf "\n"
echo 'Available versions:'
for i in "${options[#]}"
do
echo "$i $[$count+1]"
count=$[$count+1]
done
printf "\n"
echo 'Which version should be enabled?'
read selected
chosen="${options[$selected - 1]}"
chosen="$(echo -e "${chosen}" | tr -d '[:space:]')"
chosen="$(echo -e "${chosen}" | sed 's/\*//g')"
chosen="$(echo -e "${chosen}" | sed 's/php-//g')"
echo -e "php-${chosen} to be enabled."
source $HOME/.phpbrew/bashrc
phpbrew switch php-${chosen}
if [[ $chosen =~ ^5 ]]; then
sudo a2dismod php7
sudo a2enmod php5
sudo service apache2 reload
elif [[ $chosen =~ ^7 ]]; then
sudo a2dismod php5
sudo a2enmod php7
sudo service apache2 reload
else echo 'This script only works on php 5 and 7';
fi
The script runs phpbrew list on your behalf and let's you select the version using number keys. It then runs phpbrew switch and also switches the apache2 modules on or off and restarts the server.