How do I get linux server to use local PHP.ini in a shared environment?

Question

I'm on shared server environment (Dreamhost.com uses Linux/Debian).

I followed their instructions here on setting up a local PHP5 instance on my user account so that I could use APC (php5 accelerator)

A caveat is that I don't have php5 installed on the root directory "/home/php5" as assumed by the instructions/install script.

Rather I have it in another directory "home/subdir-path/php5", so I had to change the script to address that.

I tried adding this dir to the env $PATH

but when I do phpinfo(), I see that it's not using the local php.ini settings =[

Any thoughts on how to remedy this is greatly appreciated.

==OR==

If someone could show me the right steps to set up a custom php5 instance, with fastcgi, and APC (php cache/accelerator) that'd be just as great.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 28 '09 at 01:20

I've never worked with DreamHost before but looking at the wiki page you referenced and taking into account the version difference of the php-update.php script (0.1.4 vs 0.1.7) in Step 4 it would appear they require you put your necessary INI changes in the $inimodifications array found on line 73.

// Modifications to be made to the ini file after it is updated
// - If you need to change these then you can do so here, then
//   delete your target ini files and run the script again
$inimodifications = array(
    'output_buffering = 0',
    'post_max_size = 100M',
    'upload_max_filesize = 100M'
);

Considering output_buffering, post_max_size & upload_max_filesize are all options found in the php.ini file I would start with trying to add the necessary lines you're neededing to change to this array following their examples and try again.

Dennis Williamson · Answer 2 · 2009-09-28T01:34:49.077

Revise the instructions in Step 4 as here:

touch ~/subdir-path/php5/php-update.php

And change this section of the script to include "subdir-path" (this script will be the one referenced by the touch command and should include the complete script as listed in the instructions):

// Determine the version of PHP to update (4 or 5) based on the directory
$directories = explode('/', dirname(__FILE__));
$directories = array_reverse($directories);
$directory = $directories[0];

switch ($directory) {
    case 'php':
        $php = 'php';
        break;
    case 'php5':
    default:
        $php = 'php5';
        break;
}

// The full paths to the source cgi and ini
$sourcecgi = '/dh/cgi-system/' . $php . '.cgi';
$sourceini = '/etc/' . $php . '/cgi/php.ini';

// Get the HOME environment variable
$home = $_SERVER['HOME'];

// The full paths to the target cgi and ini
$targetcgi = $home . '/' . 'subdir-path' . $php . '/' . $php . '.cgi';
$targetini = $home . '/' . 'subdir-path' . $php . '/php.ini';

Also, in Step 8, make sure you make those alias(es) to your custom directory, for example:

cd ~/example.com
ln -s ~/subdir-path/php5 .

You may also need to amend the pathnames in your .htaccess file(s).

actually this did not answer my question – qodeninja Oct 06 '09 at 06:54 — qodeninja, Oct 06 '09 at 06:54

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 06 '09 at 15:25

To do this I had to create an fcgi wrapper..

you can pretty much name it whatever you want

touch php5-mywrapper.fcgi

make it executable

chmod +x php5-mywrapper.fcgi

write to the file =]

pico php5-mywrapper.fcgi

    #!/bin/sh
    export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN = 3
    exec cgi-bin/php5.fcgi -c path/to/php-ini-dir/

then i added the appropriate handlers in the .htaccess file, and places the .htaccess file in the directory of the domain that is using the fcgi

How do I get linux server to use local PHP.ini in a shared environment?

3 Answers3