How to setup Ubuntu 13.04 to work with multiple PHP version at the same time

Multiple PHP under Ubuntu 13.04.md

Multiple PHP version under Ubuntu 13.04

Update your machine

apt-get update
apt-get ugrade

Install some dependencies

apt-get install build-essential

This packages contain a lot of necessary tools like a c and a c++ compiler, make and other libs.

Install git

apt-get install git

Install the lamp server (Apache MySQL PHP)

apt-get install lamp-server^

The installation will ask you to choose a password for the mysql root user. Once finished, open a tab in your browser to http://localhost

You should see a page with the heading "It Works!"

Install php-farm

cd /opt
git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/phpfarm/code phpfarm

Configure PHP

Before compiling any PHP version, setup the options you need

vim /opt/phpfarm/src/options.sh

Mine looks like this:

#!/bin/bash
# You can override config options very easily.
# Just create a custom options file; it may be version specific:
# - custom-options.sh
# - custom-options-5.sh
# - custom-options-5.3.sh
# - custom-options-5.3.1.sh
#
# Don't touch this file here - it would prevent you to just "svn up"
# your phpfarm source code.

version=$1
vmajor=$2
vminor=$3
vpatch=$4

#gcov='--enable-gcov'
configoptions="\
--enable-bcmath \
--with-mysqli \
--with-curl \
--with-png \
--with-gd \
--enable-gd-native-ttf \
--enable-calendar \
--enable-exif \
--enable-ftp \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-pcntl \
--enable-soap \
--with-pdo-mysql \
--enable-sockets \
--enable-sqlite-utf8 \
--enable-wddx \
--enable-zip \
--with-openssl \
--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/lib \
--with-zlib \
--with-gettext \
--with-mcrypt \
$gcov"

echo $version $vmajor $vminor $vpatch

custom="custom-options.sh"
[ -f $custom ] && source "$custom" $version $vmajor $vminor $vpatch
custom="custom-options-$vmajor.sh"
[ -f $custom ] && source "$custom" $version $vmajor $vminor $vpatch
custom="custom-options-$vmajor.$vminor.sh"
[ -f $custom ] && source "$custom" $version $vmajor $vminor $vpatch
custom="custom-options-$vmajor.$vminor.$vpatch.sh"
[ -f $custom ] && source "$custom" $version $vmajor $vminor $vpatch

Compile all the PHP version you need, eg

cd /opt/phpfarm/src
./compile 5.5.0

If the compilation fails, just install the libraries that caused the error. In my case I had to install these packages:

apt-get install libxml2 libxml2-dev libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev pkg-config \ 
libcurl4-gnutls-dev libjpeg-dev libpng12-dev libmysqlclient-dev
./compile 5.5.0

To verify the installation

cd /opt/phpfarm/inst/bin
./php-5.5.0 --version

Install and enable FastCGI

apt-get install libapache2-mod-fastcgi apache2-mpm-worker apache2-suexec 
a2enmod actions fastcgi suexec
service apache2 restart

This will disable mod_php.

Edit the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf, add these lines before the includes

FastCgiServer /var/www/cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.5.0
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin-php/ /var/www/cgi-bin/

Now create the file /var/www/cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.5.0, with this content

#!/bin/sh
PHPRC="/etc/php5/cgi/5.5.0/"
export PHPRC

PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=3
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN

PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS

exec /opt/phpfarm/inst/bin/php-cgi-5.5.0

Make the file executable

chmod +x /var/www/cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.5.0

Configure a VirtualHost to use the php version we just configured eg: /etc/apache2/sites-available/example.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName example.dev
  DocumentRoot /var/www/example/
  <Directory "/var/www/example">
    AddHandler php-cgi .php
    Action php-cgi /cgi-bin-php/php-cgi-5.5.0
    <FilesMatch "\.php$">
      SetHandler php-cgi
    </FilesMatch>
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Enable the site

a2ensite example.conf

Add the server to /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 example.dev

Restart apache

service apache2 restart

I got an error at this point. Apache was complaining about mod_fast already defined. To fix the problem opne this file /etc/aoache2/mods-available/fastcgi.conf and comment out the last line inside the IfModule block

<IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>
  AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi
  #FastCgiWrapper /usr/lib/apahce2/suexec
  #FastCgiIpcDir /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi
</IfModule>

Then restart apache again

service apache2 restart

If you don't get any error you will find a working installation of PHP5.5.0 at http://example.dev :)

Thanks for this tutorial. It really works. I just needed to enable the Apache2 actions module

sudo a2enmod actions

P.S. Is there a way to keep 2 PHP versions enabled for separate folders? I can compile 2 versions and configure 2 different virtualhosts but how can I add 2 servers in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf?

@0v3rth3d4wn You can. Take a look at php-fpm.

I have created a directory abc in /var/www/ path and created a new file info.php to print phpinfo(). But when I hit URL http://abc.dev/info.php . It gives "The requested URL /cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.5.9/info.php was not found on this server" error. Can anybody help to resolve this issue?

@aggarwallalit I ran into the same issue. You have to add the line:

FastCgiServer /var/www/cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.5.9

To your apache2.conf file. You can add a line for each PHP version you want to use.