Servers-Netscape, iPlanet and SunONE

Installing PHP with NES/iPlanet/SunONE Webserver on Sun Solaris

To build PHP with NES/iPlanet/SunONE webservers, enter the proper install directory for the --with-nsapi=[DIR] option. The default directory is usually /opt/netscape/suitespot/. Please also read /php-xxx-version/sapi/nsapi/nsapi-readme.txt.

1. Install the following packages from http://www.sunfreeware.com/ or another download site:

   autoconf-2.13

   automake-1.4

   bison-1_25-sol26-sparc-local

   flex-2_5_4a-sol26-sparc-local

   gcc-2_95_2-sol26-sparc-local

   gzip-1.2.4-sol26-sparc-local

   m4-1_4-sol26-sparc-local

   make-3_76_1-sol26-sparc-local

   mysql-3.23.24-beta (if you want mysql support)

   perl-5_005_03-sol26-sparc-local

   tar-1.13 (GNU tar)

2. Make sure your path includes the proper directories PATH=.:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin and make it available to your system export PATH.

3. gunzip php-x.x.x.tar.gz (if you have a .gz dist, otherwise go to 4).

4. tar xvf php-x.x.x.tar

5. Change to your extracted PHP directory: cd ../php-x.x.x

6. For the following step, make sure /opt/netscape/suitespot/ is where your netscape server is installed. Otherwise, change to the correct path and run:

   ./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \ --with-nsapi=/opt/netscape/suitespot/ \ --enable-libgcc

7. Run make followed by make install.

After performing the base install and reading the appropriate readme file, you may need to perform some additional configuration steps.

Installing PHP with NES/iPlanet/SunONE on Windows

To Install PHP as CGI (for Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet, SunONE, perhaps Fastrack), do the following:

• Copy php4ts.dll to your systemroot (the directory where you installed Windows)

• Make a file association from the command line. Type the following two lines:

  assoc .php=PHPScript ftype PHPScript=c:\php\php.exe %1 %*

• In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a dummy shellcgi directory and remove it just after (this step creates 5 important lines in obj.conf and allow the web server to handle shellcgi scripts).

• In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a new mime type (Category: type, Content-Type: magnus-internal/shellcgi, File Suffix:php).

• Do it for each web server instance you want php to run

More details about setting up PHP as a CGI executable can be found here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php.html

To Install PHP as NSAPI (for Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet, SunONE, perhaps Fastrack), do the following:

• Copy php4ts.dll to your systemroot (the directory where you installed Windows)

• Make a file association from the command line. Type the following two lines:

  assoc .php=PHPScript ftype PHPScript=c:\php\php.exe %1 %*

• In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a new mime type (Category: type, Content-Type: magnus-internal/x-httpd-php, File Suffix: php).

• Edit magnus.conf (for servers >= 6) or obj.conf (for servers < 6) and add the following: You should place the the lines after mime types init.

  Init fn="load-modules" funcs="php4_init,php4_execute,php4_auth_trans" shlib="c:/php/sapi/php4nsapi.dll" Init fn="php4_init" LateInit="yes" errorString="Failed to initialise PHP!" [php_ini="c:/path/to/php.ini"]

  (PHP >= 4.3.3) The php_ini parameter is optional but with it you can place your php.ini in your webserver config directory.

• Configure the default object in obj.conf (for virtual server classes [SunONE 6.0+] in their vserver.obj.conf): In the <Object name="default"> section, place this line necessarily after all 'ObjectType' and before all 'AddLog' lines:

  Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" [inikey=value inikey=value ...]

  (PHP >= 4.3.3) As additional parameters you can add some special php.ini-values, for example you can set a docroot="/path/to/docroot" specific to the context php4_execute is called. For boolean ini-keys please use 0/1 as value, not "On","Off",... (this will not work correctly), e.g. zlib.output_compression=1 instead of zlib.output_compression="On"

• This is only needed if you want to configure a directory that only consists of PHP scripts (same like a cgi-bin directory):

  <Object name="x-httpd-php"> ObjectType fn="force-type" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" Service fn=php4_execute [inikey=value inikey=value ...] </Object>

  After that you can configure a directory in the Administration server and assign it the style x-httpd-php. All files in it will get executed as PHP. This is nice to hide PHP usage by renaming files to .html.

• Restart your web service and apply changes

• Do it for each web server instance you want PHP to run

More details about setting up PHP as an NSAPI filter can be found here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php4.html

CGI environment and recommended modifications in php.ini

Important when writing PHP scripts is the fact that iPlanet/SunONE/Netscape is a multithreaded web server. Because of that all requests are running in the same process space (the space of the webserver itsself) and this space has only one environment. If you want to get CGI variables like PATH_INFO, HTTP_HOST etc. it is not the correct way to try this in the old PHP 3.x way with getenv() or a similar way (register globals to environment, $_ENV). You would only get the environment of the running webserver without any valid CGI variables!

Simply change your scripts to get CGI variables in the correct way for PHP 4.x by using the superglobal $_SERVER. If you have older scripts which use $HTTP_HOST,..., you should turn on register_globals in php.ini and change the variable order to (important: remove "E" from it, because you do not need the environment here):

variables_order = "GPCS" register_globals = On

Special use for error pages or self-made directory listings (PHP >= 4.3.3)

You can use PHP to generate the error pages for "404 Not Found" or similar. Add the following line to the object in obj.conf for every error page you want to overwrite:

Error fn="php4_execute" code=XXX script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...]

where XXX ist the HTTP error code. Please delete any other Error directives which could interfere with yours. If you want to place a page for all errors that could exist, leave the code parameter out. Your script can get the HTTP status code with $_SERVER['ERROR_TYPE'].

Another possibility is to generate self-made directory listings. Just create a PHP script which displays a directory listing and replace the corresponding default Service line for type="magnus-internal/directory" in obj.conf with the following:

Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/directory" script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...]

For both error and directory listing pages the original URI and translated URI are in the variables $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] and $_SERVER['PATH_TRANSLATED'].

Note about nsapi_virtual() and subrequests (PHP >= 4.3.3)

The NSAPI module now supports the nsapi_virtual() function (alias: virtual()) to make subrequests on the webserver and insert the result in the webpage. The problem is, that this function uses some undocumented features from the NSAPI library.

Under Unix this is not a problem, because the module automatically looks for the needed functions and uses them if available. If not, nsapi_virtual() is disabled.

Under Windows limitations in the DLL handling need the use of a automatic detection of the most recent ns-httpdXX.dll file. This is tested for servers till version 6.1. If a newer version of the SunONE server is used, the detection fails and nsapi_virtual() is disabled.

If this is the case, try the following: Add the following parameter to php4_init in magnus.conf/obj.conf:

Init fn=php4_init ... server_lib="ns-httpdXX.dll"

where XX is the correct DLL version number. To get it, look in the server-root for the correct DLL name. The DLL with the biggest filesize is the right one.

You can check the status by using the phpinfo() function.