Shabbir’s Blog

This is the third in the series of HOWTOs that I’ve decided to write following my painful experiences with installing PHP on Windows 2003 and running it under IIS6.  Hopefully they’ll be found valuable by readers.

The entire series can be found here:

1. Installing and Configuring MySQL Server
2. Installing, Configuring and Using MySQL Client Tools
3. Installing and Configuring PHP for IIS
4. Installing and Configuring PHPMyAdmin on IIS

Without further ado, let’s jump straight into Part 3:

Part 3: Installing and Configuring PHP for IIS

Planning

As with any other serious install, planning is a major part of a having a successful installation/configuration session.  With this in mind, be sure that you have read this HOWTO in it’s entirety prior to starting.  Otherwise, as long as you follow my detailed instructions, you should be perfectly happy.

Downloading PHP

The first thing you’ll have to do is download the latest PHP binaries from www.php.net, as of now, the current version is 5.2.4 (I’m only focusing on the PHP 5.x.x releases, since PHP 4.x.x is going to be discontinued on Monday, December 31, 2007, it probably isn’t a very useful exercise to be writing HOWTOs and detailed tutorials on how to install, configure and ultimately use it.

If you need PHP 4.x.x for any reason, and you’re struggling with the install, please do let me know, and I’ll do whatever I can to help.

When you’re downloading - be sure to get the latest ZIP version, NOT THE INSTALLER PACKAGE.  While the installer package does work on most occasions, it is generally safer to know how to do this by hand, thereby, being in a position to do the needful in the event of an Installer messup.  I also feel it’s just nicer to know what happens under the hood - installers and the new Windows Double-Click culture have robbed our next generation of some of the old-school attention to detail that was one of my core reasons for getting into the entire IT field in the first place.

So without further ado, let’s download PHP 5.2.4’s ZIP Package:

Once you’ve downloaded the file, you now need to extract it’s contents and put it into a folder somewhere on the root of your C: drive.  Generally it’s considered best practice to extract the files to either C:\PHP or C:\PHP524 - for this example, I’ve chosen to extract the files to C:\PHP524 (that way I can cope with varying versions and it’s a more elegant method I feel), you can choose something similar.  Be sure that the directory you extract the files into does not have WHITESPACES:

It’s also a good idea to download the PECL extensions, so now we’ll do that:

Again, as with the PHP binaries, the PECL Extensions have to now be extracted, they should be extracted into the ext folder of where you’ve extracted the PHP binaries.  In our case, this is C:\PHP524\ext:

I’d also recommend that you move the two files php5activescript.dll and php5servlet.dll from the C:\PHP524\ext directory to the C:\PHP524 directory:

Now you need to copy and rename your php.ini-recommended to php.ini, this file is located in your C:\PHP524 directory:

You will probably have seen another php.ini file in that folder - named php.ini-dist, the one we’ve chosen to work with is the suggested one, the recommended one as it were, and since it’s been recommended by those that have written PHP itself, you can be quite sure that it’s a reliable choice.

Now you, need to open the php.ini file in an editor of your choice, Windows Notepad is generally a safe bet, and you might even find (assuming your install of Windows 2003 is pretty standard), that double-clicking the file, will open it in Windows Notepad.

Now, in the php.ini file, you need to UNCOMMENT:

 1: cgi.force_redirect

and set it to equal 0 (Zero).  So you need to change:

 1: ; cgi.force_redirect = 1

and turn it into:

 1: cgi.force_redirect = 0

THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT STEP.  NEGLECTING IT COULD RESULT IN ALL SORTS OF ARCHAIC PROBLEMS.  IT WON’T TAKE LONG TO DO, SO JUST DO IT!!

Before moving on, make sure you’ve saved the php.ini file.  You can save a file in Windows Notepad by pressing Ctrl and S at the same time, or by going to the File menu, and selecting the Save option.

Right, that’s the required steps out of the way.  Now since we’re building a pretty universal kind of PHP Server, it’s a good idea to generally complete some of the more optional steps.  Even if you choose not to complete these optional extras, we’ll make a note of them here for reference purposes:

Optional Step: Browser Capabilities

The first optional step, according many of the PHP Guru’s that I’ve had the pleasure to work with, is to have a browscap.ini file.  Now this isn’t really required, it’s only going to be used with the browser identification features of PHP, but it’s not a bad idea to have it in place, since there are a lot of pre-cooked scripts out there that do make use of it.

You need to browse on over to Gary Keith’s site, and more specifically his Browser Capabilities Project, over there if you get yourself to the Download portion, you will see a file named php_browscap.ini.  You can save the file into your C:\PHP524\extras folder with the name browscap.ini as shown here:

Just a quick licensing note, if you’re using the browscap.ini file in a commercial environment, then you need to be sure that you contact Gary Keith and obtain his permission to do so, if it’s for non-commercial use then as far as I’m aware it is fine.  The files are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License.  More information on the Terms and Conditions related to the Browser Capabilities Project can be found on it’s Terms and Conditions Page.  Please be sure to respect these terms and conditions.

Now that you’ve downloaded your browscap.ini file, you need to tell PHP about it, so as before, open up your php.ini file (located in C:\PHP524, generally double-clicking the file will open it in Windows Notepad), and you need to search for (you can search in Notepad by pressing Ctrl and F at the same time):

 1: ;browscap = extra/browscap.ini

and change it to read:

 1: browscap = C:PHP524extrasbrowscap.ini

Once you’ve done that, be sure to save the php.ini file by pressing Ctrl and S at the same time, or by going to the File menu, and selecting the Save option.

Optional Step: Enabling Session State Management

Right then, as with the previous step, this is again a completely optional step.  PHP doesn’t need to have sessions enabled, however, it is a very useful feature (as any serious Web Developer will advise you).  Even if you don’t know what sessions are, you still might find them useful, when using pre-cooked PHP code, therefore, I’ll give detailed instructions on how to get them setup in this environment.  Go on over to Wikipedia if you want a quick overview of what sessions in relation to computers and web applications are.  (The write-up over there isn’t the best, but does have a link to the excellent TalkPHP posting on PHP Sessions).

The first step to get sessions working is to create a session directory somewhere on the server.  It can be under your C:\PHP524\ folder (as will be the case with our example), but it can really be anywhere, as long as it’s accessible.

Some system administrators, might advise that it is stored on a SAN location, as long as it can be accessed with a drive letter, it will work with PHP on Windows.

For our example, we will create the Session folder within our C:\PHP524 folder:

Once you’ve created this directory, you will need to once again open up your php.ini file, and search for:

 1: ;session.save_path = "/tmp"

and change it to:

 1: session.save_path = "C:PHP524Sessions"

Right, now you have session state enabled on your PHP install.  Let’s move onto the next optional step, which is to setup some useful PHP Extensions.

Optional Step: Setup Useful PHP Extensions

Now, when I say "useful", it’s a very relative term, what I find useful, you might find totally pointless - and indeed the converse is entirely possible, therefore, before moving onwards, it is a good idea to describe some of the PHP Extensions that came with our PHP Download - as well as with the PECL download we performed. 

The php.net website has a pretty extensive list and description, which I will link to here for your reference:

PHP Extensions

For the purposes of our installation, we need to ensure that we’ve got the right bits and pieces in our php.ini file, and have activated the correct extensions.

Firstly, you must edit your php.ini file, search for the following:

 1: extension_dir = 

and set it to the following:

 1: extension_dir = "C:PHP524ext"

this will allow the PHP engine to find the correct extension directory.  Make sure to save the file following this by pressing Ctrl and S at the same time, or by going to the File menu, and selecting the Save option.

Generally, the default set of extensions that are part of the recommended php.ini file that we’re using are quite acceptable, and more important they don’t have issues when run within the Windows environment.  If you, however, require other extensions, then I would advise you to check the extensive list of extensions on the PHP site as provided above and select which ones you need to enable further.  You might also find the PHP PECL site useful in this regard.

However, I should point out the in addition to the default set of PHP extensions, it is always a good idea to add this list of extensions to load at the end of list of commented extensions in your php.ini file:

 1: extension=php_adt.dll

 2: extension=php_amf.dll

 3: extension=php_apd.dll

 4: extension=php_bcompiler.dll

 5: extension=php_bitset.dll

 6: extension=php_bz2.dll

 7: extension=php_bz2_filter.dll

 8: extension=php_classkit.dll

 9: extension=php_cpdf.dll

 10: extension=php_crack.dll

 11: extension=php_curl.dll

 12: extension=php_cvsclient.dll

 13: extension=php_dba.dll

 14: extension=php_dbase.dll

 15: extension=php_dbx.dll

 16: extension=php_dio.dll

 17: extension=php_docblock.dll

 18: extension=php_event.dll

 19: extension=php_mbstring.dll ; mbstring must be defined before exif.

 20: extension=php_exif.dll

 21: extension=php_fdf.dll

 22: extension=php_fileinfo.dll

 23: extension=php_filepro.dll

 24: extension=php_fribidi.dll

 25: extension=php_gd2.dll ; gif draw - http://www.boutell.com/gd

 26: extension=php_gettext.dll

 27: extension=php_gmp.dll

 28: extension=php_gopher.dll

 29: extension=php_haru.dll

 30: extension=php_htscanner.dll

 31: extension=php_http.dll

 32: extension=php_hyperwave.dll

 33: extension=php_id3.dll

 34: extension=php_imap.dll

 35: extension=php_interbase.dll

 36: extension=php_java.dll

 37: extension=php_ldap.dll

 38: extension=php_lzf.dll

 39: extension=php_mailparse.dll ; requires php_mbstring.dll

 40: extension=php_mcve.dll

 41: extension=php_memcache.dll

 42: extension=php_mhash.dll

 43: extension=php_mime_magic.dll

 44: extension=php_ming.dll

 45: extension=php_msql.dll

 46: extension=php_mssql.dll

 47: extension=php_mysql.dll

 48: extension=php_mysqli.dll

 49: extension=php_ntuser.dll

 50: extension=php_oggvorbis.dll

 51: extension=php_openssl.dll

 52: extension=php_operator.dll

 53: extension=php_parsekit.dll

 54: extension=php_pdf.dll

 55: extension=php_pdo.dll

 56: extension=php_pdo_firebird.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 57: extension=php_pdo_ibm.dll

 58: extension=php_pdo_mssql.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 59: extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 60: extension=php_pdo_odbc.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 61: extension=php_pdo_pgsql.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 62: extension=php_pdo_sqlite.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 63: extension=php_pdo_sqlite_external.dll

 64: extension=php_pgsql.dll

 65: extension=php_phar.dll

 66: extension=php_phpdoc.dll

 67: extension=php_pop3.dll

 68: extension=php_radius.dll

 69: extension=php_rar.dll

 70: extension=php_runkit.dll

 71: extension=php_sam.dll

 72: extension=php_sdo.dll

 73: extension=php_shmop.dll

 74: extension=php_smtp.dll

 75: extension=php_soap.dll

 76: extension=php_sockets.dll

 77: extension=php_spl_types.dll

 78: extension=php_sqlite.dll ; requires php_pdo.dll

 79: extension=php_ssh2.dll

 80: extension=php_stats.dll

 81: extension=php_stem.dll

 82: extension=php_swish.dll

 83: extension=php_timezonedb.dll

 84: extension=php_translit.dll

 85: extension=php_uploadprogress.dll

 86: extension=php_win32ps.dll

 87: extension=php_win32scheduler.dll

 88: extension=php_win32service.dll

 89: extension=php_win32std.dll

 90: extension=php_xmlrpc.dll

 91: extension=php_xsl.dll

 92: extension=php_zip.dll

 93: extension=php_zlib_filter.dll

If you have any problems, or require further guidance, get in touch and I’ll see what I can do to assist.

That’s pretty much all the optional configuration steps covered, there’s just one more REQUIRED step - well actually it’s not required as such, but it does make life considerably easier, so I classify it is as a required step (anything for an easy life as they say!! ;)), and that is to add your PHP installation directory - in our case C:\PHP524 to the Server’s PATH environment variable.

Pre IIS Configuration Tweaking

The easiest and fastest way to do this is to follow the steps below:

1. Right Click My Computer and Click Properties:
   
   

2. Select the Advanced tab in the dialog box that appears:
   
   

3. Click the Environment Variables button:
   
   

4. Double-Click the Path variable on the list of SYSTEM VARIABLES (bottom section NOT the top section of the Envornment Variables Dialog Box):
   
   

5. Add C:\PHP524 to THE BEGINNING of the string.  This is important, and you must put the new addition (C:\PHP524 (or whereever you’d extracted your PHP files)) to the beginning because, when you have other path variables before the PHP path variable; it is possible that other extensions get loaded prior to the PHP extensions, which WILL cause problems with PHP and prevent some of your extensions from loading in PHP and as a result your PHP installation WILL NOT WORK AS EXPECTED.  Therefore to be safe, put the PHP directory at the front of the PATH.

   Be sure to put the semi-colon (;) after you’ve typed C:\PHP524 and before the next element in the path variable.

   To make this very simple; highlight the text box that is labeled "Variable value", press the Home key on your keyboard, type C:\PHP524, then type a semi-colon (;) (located to the left of the L key and above the ? key on a standard QWERTY keyboard), then Click the OK button.  Job done.
   

6. Now, the new PATH variable will be available to ALL NEW command prompts, but not ones that are already active.  It’s now a good idea to restart the IIS server, we’ll do this quickly from a command line, just for speed:
   1. Click Start, then Goto Run and type cmd:

      

   2. Then in the command window that opens up type net stop w3svc and wait for it to complete stopping the World Wide Web Publishing Service:

      

   3. Now in the same command window, type net start w3svc and wait for it to complete it’s output:

      

7. That’s it your web server is now started and the PHP path variable has been incorporated - however PHP is STILL NOT ENABLED ON YOUR WEB SERVER - that’s what we’ll do now (after one more step of configuration and preparation!!).

The final step before we can begin to configure the Internet Information Server is to make sure the PHP can find it’s configuration file (the php.ini file we’ve so lovingly been preparing and modifying thus far).

There are two ways to do this, you can either go into the nether-regions of the infamous Windows RegEdit tool, or you can use a sample file I’ve prepared - modify it’s contents (as per the instructions I’ll provide) and double click to incorporate it into your registry.  If you want to use the Windows RegEdit tool, that’s fine, and you’ll have to add the following registry key:

 1: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPHPIniFilePath = C:PHP524

If you want to use my easy pre-cooked method, then take the text that is in the text box below:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPHP]

"IniFilePath"="C:\PHP524"

Copy the above text into a new Windows Notepad file.  Modify the portion that says C:\\PHP524 to whereever you’d extracted your PHP files - say for example C:\\PHP, click File and the Save to save the file, giving it a name of something like phpregfix.reg - it might be easier to save it to your Desktop.

Once you’ve saved the file, double click it:

Click Yes on the Dialog Box to incorporate the changes into the registry:

You will get confirmation that the Information in the file has been successfully entered into the registry.  Click the OK button to close the dialog box.  You can now delete the phpregfix.reg file you created earlier from your desktop (or keep it for future reference, entirely your choice.

Now we’re ready to start configuring IIS to accept and process PHP files.

IIS Configuration

Right, you’ve come this far, you should know that there isn’t a great deal more that is left to be done.  It’s nearly over, and you’ll soon have PHP running on your Windows Server under IIS.

Firstly, you need to open the IIS Manager, we’ll be doing the bulk of our configuration within this tool.  To open the IIS Manager, click the Start button, then select Administrative Tools, and then Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager:

Wait for the IIS Manager to start up:

Now, you need to follow these steps:

1. Expand the local computer in the left hand pane,
   
2. Click on the Web Service Extension in the left pane,
   
3. On the right hand pan, click the blue underlined text which says: "Add a new Web service extension…"

   

4. In the ensuing dialog box, type PHP ISAPI Extension as the Extension Name, click the Add button and browse to your PHP directory, and find the file php5isapi.dll.  Finally, ensure that the Set extension status to Allowed checkbox is CHECKED and click OK:

   

At this juncture, I should point out that you can also set up PHP as a CGI Extension as opposed to an ISAPI extension, but generally the ISAPI extension is considered more secure and definitely more efficient.  However, to get the system working with the CGI extension if you absolutely must, you can follow the steps outlined above - you can have both types of PHP installed at the same time - thought it is kind of pointless to do so.  Nevertheless, you can repeat the process (1-4 above), and instead of looking for the php5isapi.dll file, find the php-cgi.exe file - which will be in the same directory.

I should point out, that the CGI module does have a tendency to throw a wobbly at random points in time and for no apparent reason, and as a result, in my many years of playing with IIS and PHP, I’ve generally stayed as far away from it as is possible.  Having said that, your mileage may vary.

Now we need to get the system to understand the .php extension.

These steps should be applied to the "Web Sites" root folder in IIS Manager, however, they can - and for the purposes of this HOWTO will be - applied to individual sites instead.  Applying the PHP extensions to a Microsoft Sharepoint Administration site will not be a particularly pleasant experience, and one I’d very strongly advise against!!

Firstly, you need to open the IIS Manager.  To open the IIS Manager, click the Start button, then select Administrative Tools, and then Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager:

Wait for the IIS Manager to start up:

Now, you need to follow these steps:

1. Expand the local computer in the left hand pane,
   
2. Expand the Web Sites to get a list of the web sites on your server,
   
3. Select the Web Site that you want to apply the PHP extension to and Right Click it - in my case it’s the "Default Web Site":
   
   

4. Click over to the Home Directory tab and click the Configuration button:
   
   

5. Make sure you’re on the Mappings tab and click the Add… button:
   
   

6. Click the Browse… button and locate the php5isapi.dll (or the php-cgi.exe file if you have masochistic tendencies and have gone for the CGI option), then in the Extension text box type .php. 

   Select the Limit to radio button in the Verbs section of the dialog box and enter GET,POST,HEAD.

   The two checkboxes for Script Engine and Verify that file exist should remain in their default state of CHECKED:
   
   

7. Click OK to close the Add/Edit Application Extension Mapping dialog box, then click OK again to close the Application Configuration dialog box, before you close the Web Site Properties dialog box, just make sure that you’ve got the Execute Permissions on that Web Site set to Scripts only (if for some reason you need the ability to run executables on the server directly, then the permissions should be set to Scripts and Executables - if you don’t need executables then ideally just set it to Scripts Only).
   
8. Before you close up the Web Site properties dialog box, there is one step that you might want to perform, generally you should have to, but just to be sure, let’s complete that step and avoid any strange errors or complications.  Click over to the ISAPI Filters tab:
   
   

9. Click the Add… button and in the dialog box that comes up, enter PHP for the Filter name, and browse to the php5isapi.dll file for the executable:

    

10. Once you’ve done that, click the OK button to close the dialog box, and then Click OK again to close the Web Site properties dialog box. 

    STEPS 8 AND 9 SHOULD ONLY BE COMPLETED IF YOU HAVE USED THE ISAPI EXTENSION (php5isapi.dll) IF YOU ARE USING THE CGI EXTENSION, YOU CAN IGNORE STEPS 8 AND 9.

What we’ve done here is to tell IIS to respond and do something with .php files, until now, IIS had absolutely no idea what to do with .php files, you’ve now told it to pass them through the php5isapi.dll (or as I said, if you’re masochistic through the php-cgi.exe file).

That’s pretty much the core configuration.  Now to make sure everything is going to work okay, it’d a good idea to perform a reboot.  You can sometimes get-away with just a restart of IIS, but I’m a little more thorough, and prefer a reboot.  Reboot your server, then we’ll come back to test the system and make sure that it works.

Testing the Setup

Okay, first things first, we need to once again open up the IIS Manager (it’ll be the easiest and fastest way to get a test page into the right directory).  To open the IIS Manager, click the Start button, then select Administrative Tools, and then Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager:

Wait for the IIS Manager to start up:

Now, you need to follow these steps:

1. Goto the website that you had applied the PHP extension to, and expand it (in my case it’s the Default Web Site), right click the web site in question on the left hand pane, and select the Open option:
   
   

2. This will open up the actual folder where the files for this directory are stored on your file system:
   
   

3. Now you need to create a PHP test file, which will test our PHP install and confirm (notice my confidence and optimism - I’ve done this before ;)) that all is well and that it’s working fine.

   A useful sample test.php can be found below:

    1: <?php

    2:  // testing sessions

    3:  // check to see if files are being created

    4:  // in the session.save_path folder

    5:  session_start();

    6: ?>

    7: <html>

    8:  <head>

    9:  <title>PHP Test</title>

    10:  </head>

    11:  <body>

    12:  <p>

    13:  The browser you’re using is 

    14:  <?php echo $_SERVER[‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’]; ?>

    15:  </p>

    16:  <p>

    17:  <!– test the browscap setup –>

    18:  Your browser’s capabilities are: <br/>

    19:  <pre>

    20:  <?php print_r(get_browser(null, true)); ?>

    21:  </pre>

    22:  </p>

    23:  <?php phpinfo(); ?>

    24:  </body>

    25: </html>

4. If you chose not to install the session support or the browscap functionality, you can use this test.php instead:

    1: <html>

    2:  <head>

    3:  <title>PHP Test</title>

    4:  </head>

    5:  <body>

    6:  <?php phpinfo(); ?>

    7:  </body>

    8: </html>

    9:  

5. Once you have created and saved the file - using whichever option you chose to use, point your browser to the appropriate location - or use the already open IIS Manager to Browse on over to the file:
   
    
6. If you used the other PHP test file (without the session or browscap support), then you will see a page that is like:
   
   

7. If you see either of the two pages above, then you can scroll down, and see what extensions you’ve got and any settings.  There is one last check we need to make, and that is if you enabled the session support.
   
8. Open Windows Explorer, and goto the directory you had set as the store for your PHP Sessions (in our case it was C:\PHP524\Sessions), and see if you have some 0 byte files in there:
   
   

Once you’ve confirmed that there are some (at least one) 0 byte files in that folder, you can be confident that your PHP install is working and that you are now the proud administrator / owner / user of a Windows IIS Server with complete PHP Support.

Congratulations!

If you have any questions about this HOWTO, or something didn’t work as expected, or if you feel it can be improved in anyway, please do let me know, if you click on over to my blog’s About Page you’ll find a way of contacting me.

I’ll hopefully get Parts 2 and 4 of this comprehensive MySQL and PHP on Windows HOWTO completed pretty soon, but for now, you’ve got your MySQL Server HOWTO and your PHP HOWTO, so enjoy!!

Leave me a comment here, and let me know how you get on.

Warm Regards,

Shabbir