HOWTO run a custom PHP build on Opalstack

sean

Opalstack's PHP setup is configured to meet the requirements for most PHP applications, but sometimes you might be working with a bleeding-edge application (or maybe a really old one) that needs a PHP version or configuration that's different than what Opalstack provides.

In those cases, you can build your own version of PHP from source and use that to serve your application.

As an example, there are some applications that need to use a newer version of the popular curl libarary. These are the steps to install a private PHP-FPM stack with a custom-built version of PHP with an up-to-date version of curl.

Create a "Nginx Proxy Port" app in your Opalstack dashboard and make a note of the app's name and port assignment.
SSH to your Opalstack server as the new app's shell user.

Run the following commands to install curl and PHP:

source scl_source enable devtoolset-11
mkdir -p ~/src ~/tmp ~/opt
export TMPDIR=$HOME/tmp
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/opt/lib

# curl
cd ~/src
wget https://curl.se/download/curl-7.81.0.tar.xz
tar xf curl-7.81.0.tar.xz
cd curl-7.81.0
./configure --prefix=$HOME/opt --with-openssl
make && make install

# php
cd ~/src
wget https://www.php.net/distributions/php-8.1.2.tar.xz
tar xf php-8.1.2.tar.xz
cd php-8.1.2
./configure --prefix=$HOME/opt --with-pdo-mysql -with-pdo-pgsql=/usr/pgsql-11 --enable-bcmath --enable-calendar --enable-exif --enable-ftp --enable-mbstring --enable-soap --with-curl=$HOME/opt --with-gettext --with-gmp --with-iconv --with-kerberos --with-mhash --with-mysqli --with-openssl --with-pgsql=/usr/pgsql-11 --with-xsl --with-zlib-dir --without-pear --enable-sockets --enable-intl --with-mysql-sock=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock --enable-fpm --with-zlib
make && make install

Install a PHP-FPM stack into the app you created in step 1. Instructions for installing the PHP-FPM stack are available at: HOWTO run a private PHP-FPM stack on Nginx or Apache on Opalstack - Opalstack Community Forum

Configure the PHP-FPM stack to use your custom PHP by running the following commands as your stack's shell user:

cd ~/apps/name_of_app/bin
ln -f -s $HOME/opt/sbin/php-fpm ./

Edit the stack's bin/start script to insert the following line near the top, just below #!/bin/bash:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/opt/lib

Restart the stack to pick up the changes by running the following command:

~/apps/name_of_app/bin/restart

Route the stack app to whatever site at https://my.opalstack.com/domains/.

You're done!

simon

Hi, I've just been trying to compile php-8.3.8 using the instructions above.

I changed psql-11 to psql-14 - I assume this is the right thing to do?

I get an error about a missing package oniguruma

Is this package installed somewhere (opalstack16) or is it best to download and build it myself?
or is the system php8.3 (which I can see is available) safe to use yet>

Thanks,
Simon.

sean

simon I changed psql-11 to psql-14 - I assume this is the right thing to do?

Yes, but it should be /usr/pgsql-14.

simon Is this package installed somewhere (opalstack16) or is it best to download and build it myself?

The main package was installed but not the dev package. I've just installed that so you should now be able to build against it.

simon is the system php8.3 (which I can see is available) safe to use yet

You should be able to use the system PHP 8.3 in a private PHP stack by running the following commands:

cd ~/apps/name_of_app/bin
ln -f -s /opt/remi/php83/root/usr/sbin/php-fpm ./

simon

Lovely. I checked the build completed, which it did, and then ignored it and used the system php 8.3 and that seems fine.
Thanks, Simon.