First questions of a newbie

lanny

I have a unix (actually AIX) server, now running ORION in production and Apache 2.40 in test mode. I'd like to get away from JSPs and such of an application server and rewrite my application in PHP.

I have downloaded a binary version of PHP 4.3.3 and can run
/usr/local/bin/php

Here are my questions

1) Is it better to run PHP as
a)CGI
b)Apache module

2) If a), is it necessary to copy php to the cgi directiory and name it php.cgi ?

3) If b), where can I find/how do I build the php module for apache

Thanks for any help.

Lanny

LordShryku

Well, I've never run PHP as a CGI, so I couldn't tell you what's "better". But the most common thing you will find is running it as an Apache Module. My site takes over 60,000 hits per day, and runs about 10,000 DB queries(against multiple databses on multiple servers) per day, and I've never seen it consume more than 60mb of RAM.

lanny

Originally posted by LordShryku
Well, I've never run PHP as a CGI, so I couldn't tell you what's "better". But the most common thing you will find is running it as an Apache Module. My site takes over 60,000 hits per day, and runs about 10,000 DB queries(against multiple databses on multiple servers) per day, and I've never seen it consume more than 60mb of RAM.

Thank you for your response. I am sure you are trying to be helpful but all I am able to infer from your answer is that you are partial to Apache module method. Where do I find this apache module ?

tekky

we're all big fans of searching here....

and my guess is, http://www.php.net has all these questions regarding how to get php to work with apached and such already answered for you (and us)

lanny

Originally posted by tekky
we're all big fans of searching here....
...

Karl,
thanks for your reply. I guess I am in a wrong room here. I have stated that I installed the binary version and then asked a couple of questions. I guess I forgot the preceed it by something like "I have searched the web extensively, but for my AIX.4.3.3 environment running Apache 2.40 there does not seem to be much information on installing mod_php in a binary environment. I obvously made a wrong assumption and I appologize - I got spoiled by Perl forums.

dalecosp

Well, there is an install forum here, but it doesn't get read too much. I don't know that you'd have better luck there.

That said, there's a FAQ there for Linux. I've not read it, I've had no problems installing PHP.

You might try the manual http://us2.php.net/manual/en/install.unix.php for general information on the ./configure make make install method (old-style??) building of PHP/Apache/MySQL, whatever.

The PHP manual helped me set up my first install of PHP on FreeBSD. Since that time I use the FBSD ports system ... set and forget, mostly. I'd say you'll have to do it the old way, but I no nothing about AIX, except it's another flavor of 'Nix.

So, um PERL forums are nicer? :eek: If you bash PERL here, you usually get a chorus of AMENs and two or three very hot flames ... and a few youngsters who say, "didn't PHP come from PERL?"

HTH, 😉

lanny

Thank you all. I got it working. It was a bit og a struggle - had to upgrade unix, upgrade apache but it's up and running.