RE: php(5)-cgi + Apache2 + fastcgiexternalserver = lost hair

[Paul Blondé <jpb@xxxxxxxx>]

*eyes crossing*

ok, you are getting into stuff that is way beyond me, but if you get it
working do let us know how you managed it.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul Blondé


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Shadwick [mailto:tshadwick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 2:03 PM
To: Keith Roberts
Cc: php-install@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re:  php(5)-cgi + Apache2 + fastcgiexternalserver =
lost hair


Not quite.  You can't run the apache module.  I think you're mistaking me...

On box A we have:

Apache2 + mod_fastcgi

on box B we have

PHP5 built as a CGI module (I have a CLI binary available too, but can 
delete it for testing purposes).

On box B, I start the php repsonder by doing this:

/usr/local/bin/php-cgi -b 9000

 From box A, I can telnet to box B on port 9000, and it answers.

Back on Box A, I have the config at the bottom of this message, where 
I've defined in httpd.conf fastcgiexternalserver:

FastCGIExternalServer  /path/to/stub/fcgi-bin/php -host (IP of box B):9000


Then in my virtual host I've placed this:

AddHandler php-cgi .php
Action php-cgi /fcgi-bin/php
ScriptAlias /fcgi-bin/php /path/to/stub/fcgi-bin/php

After restarting apache, I can then attempt to execute phpinfo.php which 
is in my site's document root.  I get no input file specified, and in 
the logs, it says that the remote php is returning a 404.  Also included 
is the strings output of what I capture from tcpdump.


(Just realizing I'm becoming a broken record here...) :)


Keith Roberts wrote:
> That's interesting Tony. Didn't know you could do that. Are you saying 
> you want to run PHP as an Apache module, and the CLI version remotely?
> 
> If so, why would you want to do that?
> 
> Regards
> 
> Keith
> 
> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007, Tony Shadwick wrote:
> 
>> To: Keith Roberts <keith@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> From: Tony Shadwick <tshadwick@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> Subject: Re:  php(5)-cgi + Apache2 + 
>> fastcgiexternalserver = lost
>>      hair
>>
>> Yup.  Build php as a cgi binary, and then start it with -b flag.  You 
>> can choose the port you want to run it on.  Then use 
>> fastcgiexternalserver (or equivalent) to connect to it.
>>
>> Keith Roberts wrote:
>>> AFAIR I have never heard of hosting apache and php on seperate 
>>> machines. I don't even know if you can connect to php remotely, say 
>>> like MySQL on a specified port?
>>>
>>> Kind Regards
>>>
>>> Keith Roberts
>>>
>>> On Tue, 24 Jul 2007, Paul Blondé wrote:
>>>
>>>> To: php-install@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> From: Paul Blondé <jpb@xxxxxxxx>
>>>> Subject: RE:  php(5)-cgi + Apache2 + 
>>>> fastcgiexternalserver = lost
>>>>      hair
>>>>
>>>> wait...are you saying that you are hosting your PHP on one machine, 
>>>> and your
>>>> Apache on another?
>>>>
>>>> Does Apache+PHP support remoting like that?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>>>> Paul Blondé
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Tony Shadwick [mailto:tshadwick+php.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 11:02 AM
>>>> To: php-install@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Subject:  php(5)-cgi + Apache2 + fastcgiexternalserver 
>>>> = lost
>>>> hair
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Okie.  I've been googling for days on this now, and I've come across
>>>> several PHP bug reports that basically say this is a configuration
>>>> error, and not a php bug.  If that's true, I seriously need help.
>>>>
>>>> On my web server box, I'm running Apache2.1, and in my httpd.conf 
>>>> file I
>>>> have this:
>>>>
>>>> FastCGIExternalServer  /path/to/stub/fcgi-bin/php -host php-host:9000
>>>>
>>>> Then in my Includes/site.conf (individual sites each have their own
>>>> config file), I have this:
>>>>
>>>> AddHandler php-cgi .php
>>>> Action php-cgi /fcgi-bin/php
>>>> ScriptAlias /fcgi-bin/php ScriptAlias /fcgi-bin/php
>>>> /path/to/stub/fcgi-bin/php
>>>>
>>>> Then I have a directive that adds +ExecCGI to the user's directory. So
>>>> far so good.  Restart apache.
>>>>
>>>> On the php-host box, I've compiled:
>>>>
>>>> php5-5.2.3          PHP Scripting Language (Apache Module and CLI)
>>>>
>>>> I start it using php-cgi -b 9000.  The port accepts connections just
>>>> fine.  When I go to browse to a simple script on my web host that has:
>>>>
>>>> <?
>>>>
>>>> phpinfo();
>>>>
>>>> ?>
>>>>
>>>> I get "No input file specified." on screen, and in the logs I get what
>>>> oddly appears to be a 404 message:
>>>>
>>>> 172.16.12.2 - - [23/Jul/2007:22:27:12 -0500] "GET /phpinfo.php 
>>>> HTTP/1.1"
>>>> 404 25 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en)
>>>> AppleWebKit/419.2.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3"
>>>>
>>>> Except it's really not a 404.  If I get rid of the php handler, it
>>>> returns the text of the script just fine.
>>>>
>>>> I've googled this mess forwards and backwards, and what I come 
>>>> across is
>>>> that there appears to be some sort of a tiff between PHP and web
>>>> servers, where web servers usually pass along the environment variable
>>>> SCRIPT_NAME, whereas PHP wants SCRIPT_FILENAME in order to determine
>>>> that it is running in cgi mode (I think?).  I've done everything I can
>>>> think of to facilitate that.  I've adjusted the relavent setting in
>>>> php.ini on the php host
>>>>
>>>> cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
>>>>
>>>> Restart the php-cgi binary, does no good.  I've tried making 
>>>> mod-rewrite
>>>> changes on apache2 to force SCRIPT_FILENAME to be assigned, that 
>>>> doesn't
>>>> work.  I've tried manually assigning a SCRIPT_FILENAME environment
>>>> variable on the shell that I'm executing php-cgi from.  That too fails.
>>>>
>>>> Out of desperation, I finally ran tcpdump -w ~/phpdump.txt -i em0 port
>>>> 9000 on the php-cgi host.  I won't bore you with everything that
>>>> wireshark says about it, rather, the most relevant part gets 
>>>> revealed by
>>>> strings I think:
>>>>
>>>> # strings ~/phpdump.txt
>>>> REDI
>>>> SCRIPT_NAME/fcgi-bin/
>>>> Status: 404
>>>> X-Powered
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> A few things stand out to me here:  number one, SCRIPT_NAME appears to
>>>> be getting sent, 2 it looks like php-cgi is the one returning 404, not
>>>> the web server, and finally....this is getting a bit truncated, isn't
>>>> it?  I'd fully expect to find the full X-Powered header there, and if
>>>> it's going to say /fcgi-bin/, I'd expect to find /fcgi-bin/php.  and
>>>> REDI....?
>>>>
>>>> Anyone have an idea what I can do to fix this up?  The file DOES exist.
>>>>  It'd currently chmod 777 to make sure it's not a permissions thing
>>>> (it's just phpinfo at this point anyway....).  The traffic *is* being
>>>> sent to port 9000 on the php-cgi host.  What else can I do?
>>>>
>>>> Tony Shadwick
>>>> OSS Solutions
>>>>
>>>
>>
>