php docs ask me to download

rhaskett

i searched for this error but no luck, to add to my lack of luck the search funtion on this site has crashed. when i access my test.php page i am asked to download the document. i'm sure there is something i'm missing from my install but i do not know what. any help is appreciated.

thanks

-russ

trippyd

hate to ask the obvious, but are you accessing the test.php from a local drive, or are you passing it through a server with a php parser?

rhaskett

the setup is a red hat6.2 box ,kernel 2.2.16
i have httpd running as localhost. i either connect with a nic to nic patch cable or sometimes, like today, bring this little beast into the office and hook it into our lan. i am accessing it from another computer through http, i guess is my answer to your question. php parser? not sure about that part, hell i'm not even sure i got the puppy installed correctly. i have only done 1 install before this of php, on my production webserver for hte company -i was creating this one so i could learn and play without t-boning my live server.

thanks for the response.
-russ

trippyd

Ok, My guess is that you don't have php correctly installed. Correctly installed, a a server with php correctly installed will tell the browser (through the headers) "Hey you! I am really HTML! Ignore that .php extension!" Incorrectly installed, the server doesn't know what to do with the .php extension, so it doesn't put any headers with it, doesn't parse it, and passes the problem on to the browser, which then says "Gee, I really don't know what it is either, I guess it must be a file" and then tries to download it.

I would double check the install.

Good call on the Dev server. Personally, I have a test server, which gets test configs (as in new versions of php, apache, etc), a dev server, which gets pages in development, and a production server, which gets production stuff.

rhaskett

yeah i just found out that i don't have LoadModule php4_module modules/php4.so in my httpd.conf. i must figure out what crazyness has happend and left me lacking. maybe a few beers will help- probably be taking the box home to play into the wee hours.
thanks for the help.

-russ