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My environment is z/OS 2.3 with IBM Apache HTTP Server (Version 9).  I installed the latest version of PHP (7.0.5) using Rocket's Miniconda package manager. I tested it from the OMVS Shell and it works fine. I queried it for the version it is currently and it comes back with the correct response (7.0.1) and so on and so forth.

The trouble I am having is getting to connect to PHP from the HTTP Server. I am new to PHP and I tried to understand from the distributed world on how the two are paired together, i.e. Apache Server and PHP. It seems to be fairly straight forward in that world. 

There seem to be two ways of invoking PHP with Apache (1) PHP as Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) application and the other as Common Gateway Interface (CGI).  The recommended way seems to be the DSO.  To go the DSO way some directives in Apache need to be set like the LoadModule Directive which looks like 
LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/apache/lib/lipphp5.so​
But I can't seem to find any modules ending in .so within the PHP installation I did using Miniconda from Rocket. Apparently in Linux world the PHP compile puts the libphp5.so file in places like 
/usr/lib/httpd/modules​

I do not find any such path or directory on z/OS
Then the other Apache Directive like below

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

to associate files ending in .php as PHP programs.  I did add that directive, in addition I also added

Action application/x-httpd-php <path-to-my-php-bin-where-my-php-binary-resides>

Then I put my helloworld.php program in the Document Root directory of the IBM HTTP Server but I could not get my simple helloworld.php program working. When I try accessing helloworld.php from my browser as http://<IP-address>/helloworld.php I get HTTP 404 page not found error.  My hello.php program looks like this

<html>                                                            
 <head>                                                           
  <title>PHP Test</title>                                         
 </head>                                                          
 <body>                                                           
 <?php echo '<p>Hello World. This is my first php program</p>'; ?>
 </body>                                                          
</html>

I then changed the extension of the script file and renamed it as hellp.html instead of hello.php and I ended up with a blank HTML web page in the browser. I viewed the source of the blank web page (right click mouse and choose View Source) and I see that the above code in the program/script was sent  to the browser as-is without being sent to php parser. So in essence the HTTP Server did not kick in the PHP processor at all. 

So I thought I will try accessing helloworld.php as a CGI application and add the shebang

#!/usr/lpp/php/bin/php

as the first line of my hello.php program so that HTTP server simply picks up the php binary path and passes the rest of the php script to it. I got a 500 HTTP severe error code and  when I looked at the HTTP Server log I see the following message in it. I masked the actual IP Address with xxx.xx.xx.xx below.

[cgi:error] [pid 384:tid 2931157262162460675] [client xxx.xx.xx.xx:51402]End of script output before headers: php
so my attempt at running it as a CGI script also fell apart. 

I am seeking help to understand:

  1. What are the configuration directives I need in httpd.conf so that I can run my PHP applications from within/via the IBM HTTP server
  2. How can I run PHP as a (a) DSO application and as (b) CGI application ? What should be my HTTP Server settings/directives for both scenarios.
  3. Is there something I should do on the PHP side a well?
It would be good if Rocket Software has some documentation on how to configure IBM HTTP Server with PHP on z/OS, as there seems to be very little out there on the internet about this topic.

Thank you very much in advance for any help

Nagaraj
My environment is z/OS 2.3 with IBM Apache HTTP Server (Version 9).  I installed the latest version of PHP (7.0.5) using Rocket's Miniconda package manager. I tested it from the OMVS Shell and it works fine. I queried it for the version it is currently and it comes back with the correct response (7.0.1) and so on and so forth.

The trouble I am having is getting to connect to PHP from the HTTP Server. I am new to PHP and I tried to understand from the distributed world on how the two are paired together, i.e. Apache Server and PHP. It seems to be fairly straight forward in that world. 

There seem to be two ways of invoking PHP with Apache (1) PHP as Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) application and the other as Common Gateway Interface (CGI).  The recommended way seems to be the DSO.  To go the DSO way some directives in Apache need to be set like the LoadModule Directive which looks like 
LoadModule php5_module /usr/local/apache/lib/lipphp5.so​
But I can't seem to find any modules ending in .so within the PHP installation I did using Miniconda from Rocket. Apparently in Linux world the PHP compile puts the libphp5.so file in places like 
/usr/lib/httpd/modules​

I do not find any such path or directory on z/OS
Then the other Apache Directive like below

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

to associate files ending in .php as PHP programs.  I did add that directive, in addition I also added

Action application/x-httpd-php <path-to-my-php-bin-where-my-php-binary-resides>

Then I put my helloworld.php program in the Document Root directory of the IBM HTTP Server but I could not get my simple helloworld.php program working. When I try accessing helloworld.php from my browser as http://<IP-address>/helloworld.php I get HTTP 404 page not found error.  My hello.php program looks like this

<html>                                                            
 <head>                                                           
  <title>PHP Test</title>                                         
 </head>                                                          
 <body>                                                           
 <?php echo '<p>Hello World. This is my first php program</p>'; ?>
 </body>                                                          
</html>

I then changed the extension of the script file and renamed it as hellp.html instead of hello.php and I ended up with a blank HTML web page in the browser. I viewed the source of the blank web page (right click mouse and choose View Source) and I see that the above code in the program/script was sent  to the browser as-is without being sent to php parser. So in essence the HTTP Server did not kick in the PHP processor at all. 

So I thought I will try accessing helloworld.php as a CGI application and add the shebang

#!/usr/lpp/php/bin/php

as the first line of my hello.php program so that HTTP server simply picks up the php binary path and passes the rest of the php script to it. I got a 500 HTTP severe error code and  when I looked at the HTTP Server log I see the following message in it. I masked the actual IP Address with xxx.xx.xx.xx below.

[cgi:error] [pid 384:tid 2931157262162460675] [client xxx.xx.xx.xx:51402]End of script output before headers: php
so my attempt at running it as a CGI script also fell apart. 

I am seeking help to understand:

  1. What are the configuration directives I need in httpd.conf so that I can run my PHP applications from within/via the IBM HTTP server
  2. How can I run PHP as a (a) DSO application and as (b) CGI application ? What should be my HTTP Server settings/directives for both scenarios.
  3. Is there something I should do on the PHP side a well?
It would be good if Rocket Software has some documentation on how to configure IBM HTTP Server with PHP on z/OS, as there seems to be very little out there on the internet about this topic.

Thank you very much in advance for any help

Nagaraj
Hello Nagaraj,

Please take a look at the following post - there's a sample httpd.conf in there:

PHP INSTALL AND INTEGRATION TO IBM_HTTP_SERVER/9.0.0.6

For your question (2a), Rocket does not provide shared objects within PHP and therefore you need to use it via CGI.

Regards,
Vladimir
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