Ruslan's Blog : FastCGI

IIS Documentation Updates on PHP.NET

RuslanY Blog — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:18:44 GMT

PHP.NET web site is known for its well written and very detailed documentation. The excellent content together with tons of user contributed notes has made the PHP.NET the primary place for getting the help on all PHP related questions. However there was one thing in the PHP docs that was still not up-to-date. The Windows and IIS-specific installation and configuration sections did not cover the latest changes in Windows, such as IIS 7 and FastCGI. Now I am glad to let everyone know that this part of the PHP documentation is also being updated! Check out the first batch of updates: Manual Installation Steps Microsoft IIS 5.1 and IIS 6.0 Microsoft IIS 7.0 and later The content is still being updated and there are plans to add more instructions...(read more)

Windows Cache Extension for PHP and CPU usage

RuslanY Blog — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:17:49 GMT

The FastCGI module in IIS has a configuration setting maxInstances , which controls the number of concurrently running php-cgi.exe processes that IIS creates to process PHP requests. To achieve optimal performance, it is recommended to fine tune this setting for your specific environment starting with 8-10 instances per CPU core (e.g. maxInstances=32 for quad-core CPU). The Windows Cache Extension for PHP can be used to improve performance of PHP applications running on Windows operating systems. The extension caches the compiled PHP opcode in the shared memory, which helps to avoid re-doing of such CPU intensive operations as parsing and compiling of the PHP source code. This means that when Windows Cache Extension for PHP is enabled, less...(read more)

Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP – Beta

RuslanY Blog — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:10:37 GMT

Today IIS team has released the beta of the Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP . The Windows Cache Extension for PHP is a PHP accelerator , that is used to increase the speed of PHP applications running on the Windows operating systems. Any PHP application can take advantage of the functionality provided by the Windows Cache Extension for PHP without any code modifications. All that is required is that the extension is enabled and loaded by the PHP engine. Install the Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP – Beta or, download: Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP 5.2 – Beta Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP 5.3 – Beta Follow the instructions at “ Using Windows Cache Extension for PHP ” to install, enable and configure...(read more)

Per-site PHP configuration with PHP 5.3 and IIS

RuslanY Blog — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:05:27 GMT

About a year ago I wrote an article about how to enable per-site PHP configuration on IIS with FastCGI . The instructions in that article required some non-trivial manipulations of IIS and FastCGI configuration settings. At that time it was one of the primary options for enabling per site php.ini support (other option was to use the htscanner extension for PHP ). Now, with PHP 5.3 final release available , it is much simpler to implement the same configuration because PHP 5.3 has built-in support for per-directory INI settings and for user-defined INI files. This post describes how to use these features of PHP 5.3 with IIS to enable per-site and per-directory PHP configuration. Assume that you have two web sites in IIS – website1.com and website2...(read more)

FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 – RC

RuslanY Blog — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:38:07 GMT

Today IIS team has released the FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 – Release Candidate. This version is based on FastCGI Extension 1.0 and it adds several important improvements and features. The release is believed to have a quality level suitable for production deployments. Install the Release Candidate of FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 or, download: FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 – RC (x86) FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 – RC (x64) Upgrade from FastCGI Extension 1.0 and 1.5 Beta releases If you already have installed FastCGI Extension v1.0 or FastCGI Extesnion v1.5 Beta, then the installation package will upgrade it to version 1.5 – RC. All the related IIS configuration...(read more)

FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 - Beta

RuslanY Blog — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:11:12 GMT

Today IIS team has released the FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 - Beta. This version is based on FastCGI Extension 1.0 and it adds several important improvements and features. Install the Beta of FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 or, download: FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 (x86) FastCGI Extension 1.5 for IIS 6.0 and IIS 5.1 (x64) Upgrade from FastCGI Extension 1.0 release If you already have FastCGI Extension version 1.0 installed then the installation package will upgrade it to version 1.5. All the related IIS configuration and settings in fcgiext.ini file will be preserved during upgrade. Note that during upgrade the comments in fcgiext.ini will not be updated and will not mention new configuration...(read more)

Install PHP with Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0

RuslanY Blog — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:50:33 GMT

While the task of setting up PHP on IIS was not a difficult one, it anyway required a lot of manual installation and configuration steps . With the PHP 5.2.9-1 release the PHP development community has put a lot of improvements to the PHP installer to make it easy to setup PHP on IIS 5.1, IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0. The latest PHP installer can be downloaded from the PHP community site . Now, with the release of Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta (Web PI), the task of enabling PHP on Windows OS has become the easiest it has ever been. Here are the three simple steps you need to follow: Go to http://php.iis.net/ Click on the big blue button “Click to Install PHP on IIS”. This will prompt you to install Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta if you do...(read more)

Windows Installer for PHP 5.2.9 RC and PHP 5.3 Beta

RuslanY Blog — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 01:14:00 GMT

I am pleased to let everyone know that PHP development community has made significant improvements to the installer in upcoming PHP releases. In particular a number of bugs have been fixed to make the installer work well with FastCGI extension in IIS 5.1 and IIS 6.0 and with FastCGI module in IIS 7.0. Now the installer will do for you many of the configuration steps that previously you had to complete manually by following the instructions in the article Using FastCGI to Host PHP Applications on IIS 7.0 . Specifically, the installer will: Unpack PHP core files and extensions Make changes to the php.ini to enable necessary extensions and specify correct extension path Create and configure a new FastCGI process pool for PHP executable Create a...(read more)

Major revision of FastCGI/PHP article on IIS.NET

RuslanY Blog — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:27:05 GMT

Since the time we have published the article about installing FastCGI and PHP on IIS 7.0 it has become one of the most popular articles on http://learn.iis.net . Also it has received a lot of comments from site visitors. Today, we are publishing the updated version of this article that contains more up-to-date information and addresses most of the feedback from community. Here is what this article includes now: Overview Enabling FastCGI support in IIS 7.0 Windows Server 2008 Windows Vista SP1 Update for the FastCGI module Administration Pack for IIS 7.0 Install and Configure PHP Configure IIS to handle PHP requests Using IIS Manager Using command line Best practices for configuring FastCGI and PHP Security Isolation Process recycling PHP versioning...(read more)

Update for IIS 7.0 FastCGI module

RuslanY Blog — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:10:00 GMT

IIS team has recently released an update for IIS 7.0 FastCGI module that fixes compatibility problems with several popular PHP applications. In particular, the update changes the behavior of FastCGI module in the following ways: REQUEST_URI server variable set by FastCGI module now includes query string and path info. Previously, lack of the query string in this server variable caused the popular CMS application Drupal to not work with FastCGI on IIS 7.0 REQUEST_URI server variable now contains the originally requested URL path before any URL rewriting was performed. Prior to this fix, the server variable used to contain a final rewritten URL, which caused problems when using URL rewriting to enable “pretty permalinks” for popular blog engine...(read more)

Ruby on Rails in IIS 7.0 with URL Rewriter

RuslanY Blog — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:57:15 GMT

If you ever tried to set up Ruby on Rails (RoR) on IIS 7.0 with FastCGI you have probably noticed that the process is not very straightforward. There are a few workarounds that need to be applied in order for RoR to function correctly. In particular, handling of static files in your web application can be tricky on IIS 7.0. The problem is that RoR uses clean URL’s that look similar to this: http://mysite.com/home/about . In order for RoR to be invoked for this kind of URL’s it is necessary to create a “catch all” handler mapping in IIS (that is a handler mapping with path attribute set to “ * “). When you create such a handler mapping it will cause requests for static files to be routed to RoR, which will...(read more)

Per-site PHP configuration with IIS FastCGI

RuslanY Blog — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 08:03:32 GMT

There have been a few questions on IIS.NET PHP forum regarding enabling per-site PHP configuration. This is a common requirement when running PHP applications in shared hosting environment, because each PHP application may require a different set of PHP settings. Shared hosting providers often want to provide their customers with an option of controlling PHP configuration if necessary. Until recently, it was thought that per-site PHP configuration was only possible when running PHP on Apache in *nix based OS. However, with FastCGI module it is possible to enable this for PHP applications hosted on IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.0. The development team at GoDaddy.com has researched and validated several options for enabling per-site PHP configuration on Windows...(read more)