Enabling CGI and PHP on Apache2 (Shallow Thoughts)

Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.

Sat, 24 Mar 2007

Enabling CGI and PHP on Apache2

Every time I do a system upgrade on my desktop machine, I end up with a web server that can't do PHP or CGI, and I have to figure out all over again how to enable all the important stuff. It's all buried in various nonobvious places. Following Cory Doctorow's "My blog, my outboard brain" philosophy, I shall record here the steps I needed this time, so next time I can just look them up:
  1. Install apache2.
  2. Install an appropriate mod-php package (or, alternately, a full fledged PHP package).
  3. Edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default, find the stanza corresponding to the default site, and change AllowOverride from None to something more permissive. This controls what's allowed through .htaccess files. For testing, use All; for a real environment you'll probably want something more fine grained than that.
  4. While you're there, look for the Options line in the same stanza and add +ExecCGI to the end.
  5. Edit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf and search for PHP. No, not the line that already includes index.php; keep going to the lines that look something like
    #AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    #AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
    
    Uncomment these. Now PHP should work. The next step is to enable CGI.
  6. Still in /etc/apache2/apache2.conf, search for CGI. Eventually you'll get to
    # To use CGI scripts outside /cgi-bin/:
    #
    #AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
    
    Uncomment the AddHandler line.
  7. Finally, disable automatic start of apache at boot time (I don't need a web server running on my workstation every day, only on days when I'm actually doing web development). I think some upcoming Ubuntu release may offer a way to do that through Upstart, but for now, I
    mv /etc/init.d/apache /etc/noinit.d
    
    (having previously created /etc/noinit.d for that purpose).

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[ 18:54 Mar 24, 2007    More tech/web | permalink to this entry | ]

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