Topic: PHP4 as CGI?

[Angela]

Hello,

First off, this website has been quite helpful in getting SSL working for my Apache installation (I 've spent DAYS trying to get it to work with Apache 2.0.59!), and right now I'm happily coasting with Apache 2.2 and PHP5.1.6 (as well as MySQL).

However, I'm trying to get PHP4.4.4 to run concurrently, when I'm using php4.localhost instead of plain localhost (I'm using this tutorial as a guide) and while everything works now, I'm getting a 400 Bad Request whenever I try accessing PHP files in php4.localhost.

I've read a few docs/articles/threads/etc and I'm curious whether I'm having this problem because PHP 4.4.x can't run on Apache 2.2, hence the "special" dll build available on this site? Only that build is for running PHP 4.4.x as a module, not as a CGI... right?

Is running PHP4 with Apache 2.2 as CGI (as opposed to as a module) possible?

Thanks!

[James Blond]

[Brian]

One reason I see for not running as module is stability. On Windows Apache and PHP are NOT stable if you call command line apps as in exec, shell_exec, virtual, and so on.

Example, I use ImageMagick heavily, very heavily in fact, and when I use command line via PHP module, about once a day to twice or more sometimes the HTTP server service must be stopped or killed, then started again.

When you take the execution of scripts outside Apache, hence CGI/FCGI, you don't need to worry about a thread crashing and bringing down the entire server. This problem plagues only Windows, and sadly the PHP / Apache dev teams don't recognize Windows as a viable hosting option, you MUST learn *nix to be a real sysadmin ... in their eyes.

I use a blend of PHP4 and PHP5, and I run FCGI and module. If a person does not call upon any command line scripts then I strongly suspect the module is a better way to go for speed, though Steffen has proven FCGI is better for memory management as well as being darn near as fast as SAPI. The module provides a better avenue of configuration for shared hosting environments.

[Angela]

Thanks, I will try that once I am back at the office (I'm at home right now and it's the weekend). I have <Directory "D:/8. WWW - OLD"> in my cirtual host entry for php4.localhost, but I see why allowing php4 might (probably?) work.

I'm attempting to run PHP4 as CGI because I'm already running PHP5 as a module, like I said in my earlier post.

Brian, we're not using any CLI for our scripts, although it's possible in the future. Thanks for that info, I didn't know about that

[Brian]

You can run PHP4 and PHP5 as SAPI at same time. Example you can run 4 as perhaps php4 and 5 as just PHP, it just depends.

You can also use .php for both, but run from different directories / locations. You can control PHP execution from the HTTPD.CONF or an include to limit or exanp how and where PHP is executed.

Q: Do you want to run PHP 4 and 5 from same vhost, or from different directories?

[Angela]

I'm doing it the way this tutorial is doing it -- from different virtual hosts/directories. I don't want to rename my file extensions, as we're only "keeping" PHP4 in order to maintain the older systems while we're upgrading them to PHP5.

Both as SAPI -- what do you mean? The way I understand it, you mean both as an Apache module? I've read that it's not possible, and when I tried it, Apache wouldn't start. Is there a way to do that? I'd like to mimic live environment as much as possible, even if it's just for maintenance purposes, so if there is... please share

I'm including the relevant parts from my httpd.conf (I'd posted elsewhere, so I'm taking the info from there) in case that makes things a little clearer. As a refresher, everything works -- PHP5.1.6 works on localhost fine, I can access php4.localhost, but not serving PHP

[Angela]

Adding the below to the virtual host for php4.localhost isn't working

[Angela]

Hello,

It works now. Thanks to those who tried to help, I appreciate it.