Using PHP with fcgid & suexec on Apache 2.2
In short
This page summaries a working setup of PHP on Apache, using fcgid and suexec. It has been tested with Apache 2.2 on a Debian Linux system.
Installation procedure
Customisation
You need to adapt the following values to your own setup:
-
user_account:
the user account under which your PHP scripts will run. -
user_group:
the group that will be used to run your PHP scripts. -
www-data:
the user account used by Apache. -
php_site:
the directory under which your web site will be installed. -
/usr/bin/php-cgi:
the full path to your PHP interpreter1. It will need to support the FastCGI2 interface.
Apache 2 setup
Enable the fcgid
et suexec
Apache modules. If you’re using a Debian, this
can be done with the following commands:
a2enmod suexec
a2enmod fcgid
Modifiy your virtuals hosts as follows:
<VirtualHost *>
DocumentRoot /var/www/user_account/php_site
[...]
Options None
SuexecUserGroup user_account user_group
<Directory /var/www/user_account/php_site>
# The PHP scripts in this directory
# are run through the php-cgi script.
AddHandler fcgid-script .php
FCGIWrapper /var/www/user_account/php-cgi .php
Options ExecCGI
</Directory>
# We run a single PHP FastCGI server
# which will launch as many children
# as necessary.
DefaultMaxClassProcessCount 1
DefaultMinClassProcessCount 1
</VirtualHost>
You now need to check that you Apache is correctly set up:
apache2ctl -t
Directory structure creation
Unless you use the mod_userdir
Apache module, your will need to work in a
subdirectory of /var/www
.
First, create the directories that will contain your site:
mkdir -p /var/www/user_account/php_site
Then copy your files in the php_site
directory.
Wrapper script
Place the following script in a file called ‘‘php-cgi’’, in the
/var/www/user_account
directory:
#!/bin/sh
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=4
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=500
exec /usr/bin/php-cgi $@
When this script is started by Apache, it will automatically be replaced
by the php-cgi
process. This process will start 4 chilren, to process
the incoming requests. Once a child will have processed 500 requests, it
will automatically shutdown and be restarted by the initial process.
This feature is here to prevent a possible memory leak.
Your should adapt the number of children (PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN
) to suit
your needs. A lower value (e.g. 4) will be less demanding on your
server. A higher value (e.g. 8) will enable your server to handle more
connexions.
Permissions update
Apply the following permissions:
# User account directory
chown user_account:user_group /var/www/user_account
chmod u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx /var/www/user_account
# Wrapper script
chown user_account:user_group /var/www/user_account/php-cgi
chmod u=rwx,ug= /var/www/user_account/php-cgi
# Site
chown user_account:www-data /var/www/user_account/php_site
chmod -R u=rwX,g=rX,o= /var/www/user_account/php_site
Restart Apache
Everything should be OK now, you just need to restart Apache:
apache2ctl graceful
See also
- The SUEXEC documentation of the Apache project.
- The README.FastCGI file, which is included in the PHP sources.
License : CC-BY