Multiple php versions simultaneously on Ubuntu

Question

I want to be able to run multiple php versions on my development box running Ubuntu 12.04. What I want to accomplish is that when I use localhost as a domain a default is used (let's say php 5.3.17). When I use 547.localhost as domain php 5.4.7 is used. I've seen some tutorials to get this working using fastcgi but until now I haven't been able to get it to work. I've looked at these tutorials:

1. http://dbforch.wordpress.com/2010/05/21/apache2-fastcgi-multiple-php-versions-ubuntulucid-10-04/
2. http://www.metod.si/multiple-php-versions-with-apache-2-fastcgi-phpfarm-on-ubuntu/

For as far as I can see I have done everything that is needed. The problem is that php simply doesn't run. When I go to http://localhost/somephpfile.php it just outputs the source of the php file. The same for http://547.localhost/somephpfile.php.

I'll break down what steps I took in the hope that someone is able to spot what I missed.

1. First I installed a default lamp stack using sudo apt-get install lamp-server^ phpmyadmin. After this, I had a working development server running the repository version of php.

2. Then I used phpfarm to create two php installs, one for 5.3.17 and one for 5.4.7. The localion of phpfarm is /etc/php/phpfarm, so the executables are in /etc/php/phpfarm/inst/php-{version}/bin

3. Then I enable suaxec and fastcgi for apache and disable mod_php with sudo a2enmod fastcgi actions suexec && sudo a2dismod php5

4. Next, I edited /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/fastcgi.conf to read:

   <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>   
       FastCgiIpcDir /var/lib/apache2/fastcgi  
       FastCgiWrapper /usr/lib/apache2/suexec   FastCgiConfig -idle-timeout
       110 -killInterval 120 -pass-header HTTP_AUTHORIZATION -autoUpdate  
       ScriptAlias /php-fcgi/ /var/www/cgi-bin/ 
   </IfModule>
   

5. Then in /var/www/ I created a folder cgi-bin and in this folder two files, for each of the two php versions as follows (I show only the one for 5.3.17 /var/www/php5317.fcgi):

   #!/bin/sh
   # you can change the PHP version here.
   version="5.3.17"
   # php.ini file location, */php-5.2.13/lib equals */php-5.2.13/lib/php.ini.
   PHPRC=/etc/php/phpfarm/inst/php-${version}/lib/php.ini
   export PHPRC
   
   PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=3
   export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN
   
   PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
   export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS
   
   # which php-cgi binary to execute
   exec /etc/php/phpfarm/inst/php-${version}/bin/php-cgi
   

6. The last step was to create virtual hosts. In the end I have three files in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled: 000-default, php5.3.17 and php5.4.7 With the following contents:

   default:

   <VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerName localhost
     DocumentRoot /var/www
     <Directory "/var/www">
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
       AllowOverride All
       Order allow,deny
       allow from all
       AddHandler php-cgi .php
       Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php5317.fcgi
     </Directory>
   </VirtualHost>
   

   php5.3.17:

   <VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerName 5317.localhost
     DocumentRoot /var/www
     <Directory "/var/www">
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
       AllowOverride All
       Order allow,deny
       allow from all
       AddHandler php-cgi .php
       Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php5317.fcgi
     </Directory>
   </VirtualHost>
   

   php5.4.7:

   <VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerName 547.localhost
     DocumentRoot /var/www
     <Directory "/var/www">
       Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
       AllowOverride All
       Order allow,deny
       allow from all
       AddHandler php-cgi .php
       Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php547.fcgi
     </Directory>
   </VirtualHost>
   

7. Finally I changed /etc/hosts to read

   127.0.0.1   localhost
   127.0.0.1   547.localhost
   127.0.0.1   5317.localhost
   
   # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
   ::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
   fe00::0 ip6-localnet
   ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
   ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
   ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
   

Now I would expect things to work, but sadly they don't. Instead of that, a php file runs through php it just outputs the raw file.

There must be something I missed here, but I have gone through the process many times and I can't figure out where it goes wrong.

Solution

In your virtualhosts you added a handler, but you didn't set the handler which is why it isn't processed. Add:

<FilesMatch "\.php$">
    SetHandler php-cgi
</FilesMatch>

before </Directory> in each virtual hosts file.

Comments

[Admin]

1 thing I encountered was that if I named the cgi files like you did it did not work. Try renaming /var/www/cgi-bin/php-cgi-5.4.7 to /var/www/cgi-bin/php54.fcgi for example or just /var/www/cgi-bin/php.fcgi. Can u check if that helps? Just for the 5.4.7 version.

[Admin]

I have checked and unfortunately this doesn't help. I have changed the virtualhost to reflect this change as well so the the action line read Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php547.fcgi

[Admin]

I've updated the post to reflect these changes since I think is good to have it like that anyway

[Admin]

Hmm, I'll check for other posibilities then. :)

[Admin]

I was wondering, probably I don't need the suexec stuff since I don't need different users for each php version right?

[Admin]

You wouldn't believe how stupid I feel at this point. It works, and it would't because I used <? instead of <?php and I did not set short open tag on. Anyway, it works as described. Thank you all for thinking along!

[Admin]

Ha! Nice catch! Good to know the tutorial still works. ;)

[SeeDoubleYou]

There is however one more strange thing. localhost/phpmyadmin doesn't go to phpmyadmin anymore. Instead it just outputs the raw index.php file. I think I remember reading somewhere that suexec doesn't allow for anything to be outside the /var/www folder (or actually the root set for suexec and it doesn't allow symlinks. Php is of course outside this folder since it is an install from the ubuntu repositories.

[SeeDoubleYou]

Phpmyadmin is "fixed" when I add AddHandler php-cgi .php and Action php-cgi /php-fcgi/php5317.fcgi to its apache.conf. The things is now that I cannot login to mysql from phpmyadmin. I don't know whether this has anything to do with this setup, but it did work before I started with the whole fastcgi part

[SeeDoubleYou]

Actually, mysql has stopped working completely, it fails with this error [2002] No such file or directory (trying to connect via unix:///tmp/mysql.sock).