Ansible Role: PHP

Installs PHP on RedHat/CentOS and Debian/Ubuntu servers.

Requirements

If you're using an older LTS release of Ubuntu or RHEL, with an old/outdated version of PHP, you need to use a repo or PPA with a maintained PHP version, as this role only works with PHP versions that are currently supported by the PHP community.

Role Variables

Available variables are listed below, along with default values (see defaults/main.yml):

php_packages: []

A list of the PHP packages to install (OS-specific by default). You'll likely want to install common packages like php, php-cli, php-devel and php-pdo, and you can add in whatever other packages you'd like (for example, php-gd for image manipulation, or php-ldap if you need to connect to an LDAP server for authentication).

Note: If you're using Debian/Ubuntu, you also need to install libapache2-mod-fastcgi (for cgi/PHP-FPM) or libapache2-mod-php7.0 (or a similar package depending on PHP version) if you want to use mod_php with Apache.

php_packages_extra: []

A list of extra PHP packages to install without overriding the default list.

php_enable_webserver: true

If your usage of PHP is tied to a web server (e.g. Apache or Nginx), leave this default value. If you are using PHP server-side or to run some small application, set this value to false so this role doesn't attempt to interact with a web server.

php_webserver_daemon: "httpd"

The default values for the HTTP server deamon are httpd (used by Apache) for RedHat/CentOS, or apache2 (also used by Apache) for Debian/Ubuntu. If you are running another webserver (for example, nginx), change this value to the name of the daemon under which the webserver runs.

php_enablerepo: ""

(RedHat/CentOS only) If you have enabled any additional repositories (might I suggest geerlingguy.repo-epel or geerlingguy.repo-remi), those repositories can be listed under this variable (e.g. remi-php70,epel). This can be handy, as an example, if you want to install the latest version of PHP 7.0, which is in the Remi repository.

php_default_version_debian: "7.0"

(Debian/Ubuntu only) The default version of PHP in the given OS version repositories. Defaults to the latest Ubuntu LTS release. Ubuntu 18.04 needs this to be set to "7.2" since PHP 7.0 is not available in the default bionic packages.

If you'd like to be able to switch PHP versions easily, or use a version that's not available in system packages: You can use the geerlingguy.php-versions role to more easily switch between major PHP versions (e.g. 5.6, 7.1, 7.2).

php_packages_state: "present"

If you have enabled any additional repositories such as geerlingguy.repo-epel or geerlingguy.repo-remi, you may want an easy way to swap PHP versions on the fly. By default, this is set to "present". You can override this variable to "latest" to upgrade to the latest available version. Combined with php_enablerepo, a user now doesn't need to manually uninstall the existing PHP packages before installing them from a different repository.

php_install_recommends: true

(Debian/Ubuntu only) Whether to install recommended packages when installing php_packages; you might want to set this to no explicitly if you're installing a PPA that recommends certain packages you don't want (e.g. Ondrej's php PPA will install php7.0-cli if you install php-pear alongside php5.6-cli... which is often not desired!).

php_executable: "php"

The executable to run when calling PHP from the command line. You should only change this if running php on your server doesn't target the correct executable, or if you're using software collections on RHEL/CentOS and need to target a different version of PHP.

PHP-FPM

PHP-FPM is a simple and robust FastCGI Process Manager for PHP. It can dramatically ease scaling of PHP apps and is the normal way of running PHP-based sites and apps when using a webserver like Nginx (though it can be used with other webservers just as easily).

When using this role with PHP running as php-fpm instead of as a process inside a webserver (e.g. Apache's mod_php), you need to set the following variable to true:

php_enable_php_fpm: false

If you're using Apache, you can easily get it configured to work with PHP-FPM using the geerlingguy.apache-php-fpm role.

php_fpm_state: started
php_fpm_enabled_on_boot: true

Control over the fpm daemon's state; set these to stopped and false if you want FPM to be installed and configured, but not running (e.g. when installing in a container).

php_fpm_listen: "127.0.0.1:9000"
php_fpm_listen_allowed_clients: "127.0.0.1"
php_fpm_pm_max_children: 50
php_fpm_pm_start_servers: 5
php_fpm_pm_min_spare_servers: 5
php_fpm_pm_max_spare_servers: 5

Specific settings inside the default www.conf PHP-FPM pool. If you'd like to manage additional settings, you can do so either by replacing the file with your own template or using lineinfile like this role does inside tasks/configure-fpm.yml.

php.ini settings

php_use_managed_ini: true

By default, all the extra defaults below are applied through the php.ini included with this role. You can self-manage your php.ini file (if you need more flexility in its configuration) by setting this to false (in which case all the below variables will be ignored).

php_fpm_pool_user: "[apache|nginx|other]" # default varies by OS
php_fpm_pool_group: "[apache|nginx|other]" # default varies by OS
php_memory_limit: "256M"
php_max_execution_time: "60"
php_max_input_time: "60"
php_max_input_vars: "1000"
php_realpath_cache_size: "32K"
php_file_uploads: "On"
php_upload_max_filesize: "64M"
php_max_file_uploads: "20"
php_post_max_size: "32M"
php_date_timezone: "America/Chicago"
php_allow_url_fopen: "On"
php_sendmail_path: "/usr/sbin/sendmail -t -i"
php_output_buffering: "4096"
php_short_open_tag: false
php_error_reporting: "E_ALL & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT"
php_display_errors: "Off"
php_display_startup_errors: "On"
php_expose_php: "On"
php_session_cookie_lifetime: 0
php_session_gc_probability: 1
php_session_gc_divisor: 1000
php_session_gc_maxlifetime: 1440
php_session_save_handler: files
php_session_save_path: ''
php_disable_functions: []
php_precision: 14

Various defaults for PHP. Only used if php_use_managed_ini is set to true.

OpCache-related Variables

The OpCache is included in PHP starting in version 5.5, and the following variables will only take effect if the version of PHP you have installed is 5.5 or greater.

php_opcache_zend_extension: "opcache.so"
php_opcache_enable: "1"
php_opcache_enable_cli: "0"
php_opcache_memory_consumption: "96"
php_opcache_interned_strings_buffer: "16"
php_opcache_max_accelerated_files: "4096"
php_opcache_max_wasted_percentage: "5"
php_opcache_validate_timestamps: "1"
php_opcache_revalidate_path: "0"
php_opcache_revalidate_freq: "2"
php_opcache_max_file_size: "0"

OpCache ini directives that are often customized on a system. Make sure you have enough memory and file slots allocated in the OpCache (php_opcache_memory_consumption, in MB, and php_opcache_max_accelerated_files) to contain all the PHP code you are running. If not, you may get less-than-optimal performance!

For custom opcache.so location provide full path with php_opcache_zend_extension.

php_opcache_conf_filename: [platform-specific]

The platform-specific opcache configuration filename. Generally the default should work, but in some cases, you may need to override the filename.

APCu-related Variables

php_enable_apc: true

Whether to enable APCu. Other APCu variables will be ineffective if this is set to false.

php_apc_shm_size: "96M"
php_apc_enable_cli: "0"

APCu ini directives that are often customized on a system. Set the php_apc_shm_size so it will hold all cache entries in memory with a little overhead (fragmentation or APC running out of memory will slow down PHP dramatically).

php_apc_conf_filename: [platform-specific]

The platform-specific APC configuration filename. Generally the default should work, but in some cases, you may need to override the filename.

Ensuring APC is installed

If you use APC, you will need to make sure APC is installed (it is installed by default, but if you customize the php_packages list, you need to include APC in the list):

• On RHEL/CentOS systems: Make sure php-pecl-apcu is in the list of php_packages.
• On Debian/Ubuntu systems: Make sure php-apcu is in the list of php_packages.

Installing from Source

If you need a specific version of PHP, or would like to test the latest (e.g. master) version of PHP, there's a good chance there's no suitable package already available in your platform's package manager. In these cases, you may choose to install PHP from source by compiling it directly.

Note that source compilation takes much longer than installing from packages (PHP HEAD takes 5+ minutes to compile on a modern quad-core computer, just as a point of reference).

php_install_from_source: false

Set this to true to install PHP from source instead of installing from packages.

php_source_version: "master"

The version of PHP to install from source (a git branch, tag, or commit hash).

php_source_clone_dir: "~/php-src"
php_source_clone_depth: 1
php_source_install_path: "/opt/php"
php_source_install_gmp_path: "/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu/gmp.h"

Location where source will be cloned and installed, and the location of the GMP header file (which can be platform/distribution specific).

php_source_make_command: "make"

Set the make command to make --jobs=X where X is the number of cores present on the server where PHP is being compiled. Will speed up compilation times dramatically if you have multiple cores.

php_source_configure_command: >
  [...]

The ./configure command that will build the Makefile to be used for PHP compilation. Add in all the options you need for your particular environment. Using a folded scalar (>) allows you to define the variable over multiple lines, which is extremely helpful for legibility and source control!

A few other notes/caveats for specific configurations:

• Apache with mpm_prefork: If you're using Apache with prefork as a webserver for PHP, you will need to make sure apxs2 is available on your system (e.g. by installing apache2-prefork-dev in Ubuntu), and you will need to make sure the option --with-apxs2 is defined in php_source_configure_command. Finally, you will need to make sure the mpm_prefork module is loaded instead of mpm_worker or mpm_event, and likely add a phpX.conf (where X is the major version of PHP) configuration file to the Apache module config folder with contents like php7.conf.
• Apache with mpm_event or mpm_worker: If you're using Apache with event or worker as a webserver for PHP, you will need to compile PHP with FPM. Make sure the option --enable-fpm is defined in php_source_configure_command. You'll also need to make sure Apache's support for CGI and event is installed (e.g. by installing apache2-mpm-event and libapache2-mod-fastcgi) and the mpm_event module is loaded.
• Nginx: If you're using Nginx as a webserver for PHP, you will need to compile PHP with FPM. Make sure the option --enable-fpm is defined in php_source_configure_command.

Dependencies

None.

Example Playbook

- hosts: webservers
  vars_files:
    - vars/main.yml
  roles:
    - { role: geerlingguy.php }

Inside vars/main.yml:

php_memory_limit: "128M"
php_max_execution_time: "90"
php_upload_max_filesize: "256M"
php_packages:
  - php
  - php-cli
  - php-common
  - php-devel
  - php-gd
  - php-mbstring
  - php-pdo
  - php-pecl-apcu
  - php-xml
  ...

License

MIT / BSD

Author Information

This role was created in 2014 by Jeff Geerling, author of Ansible for DevOps.