How To Set Up Apache2 With mod_fcgid And PHP5 On Fedora 11

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Follow me on Twitter
Last edited 09/10/2009

This tutorial describes how you can install Apache2 with mod_fcgid and PHP5 on Fedora 11. mod_fcgid is a compatible alternative to the older mod_fastcgi. It lets you execute PHP scripts with the permissions of their owners instead of the Apache user.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

I'm using a Fedora 11 server in this tutorial with the hostname server1.example.com and the IP address 192.168.0.100.

I will create two Apache vhosts in this tutorial, www.example1.com and www.example2.com, to demonstrate the usage of mod_fcgid.

Before we start, make sure that SELinux is disabled. Open /etc/selinux/config...

vi /etc/selinux/config

... and set SELINUX to disabled:

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
#       enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
#       permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
#       disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
#       targeted - Targeted processes are protected,
#       mls - Multi Level Security protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

Run

setenforce 0

... for the change to take effect.

2 Installing Apache2/mod_fcgi/PHP5

We can install Apache2, mod_fcgid, and PHP5 as follows:

yum install httpd mod_fcgid php-cli

If Apache2 was already installed with PHP5 as an Apache module, disable the PHP5 module now - open /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf...

vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf

... and comment out everything in that file:

#
# PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language which attempts to make it
# easy for developers to write dynamically generated webpages.
#
#<IfModule prefork.c>
#  LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5.so
#</IfModule>
#<IfModule worker.c>
#  LoadModule php5_module modules/libphp5-zts.so
#</IfModule>

#
# Cause the PHP interpreter to handle files with a .php extension.
#
#AddHandler php5-script .php
#AddType text/html .php

#
# Add index.php to the list of files that will be served as directory
# indexes.
#
#DirectoryIndex index.php

#
# Uncomment the following line to allow PHP to pretty-print .phps
# files as PHP source code:
#
#AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

Then we create the system startup links for Apache and start it:

chkconfig --levels 235 httpd on
/etc/init.d/httpd restart

Next we open /etc/php.ini...

vi /etc/php.ini

... and add the line cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1 right at the end of the file:

[...]
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

Then reload Apache:

/etc/init.d/httpd reload

3 Creating Vhosts For www.example1.com And www.example2.com

I will now create two vhosts, www.example1.com (with the document root /var/www/web1/web) and www.example2.com (with the document root /var/www/web2/web). www.example1.com will be owned by the user and group web1, and www.example2.com by the user and group web2.

First we create the users and groups:

groupadd web1
groupadd web2
useradd -s /bin/false -d /var/www/web1 -m -g web1 web1
useradd -s /bin/false -d /var/www/web2 -m -g web2 web2
chmod 755 /var/www/web1
chmod 755 /var/www/web2

Then we create the document roots and make them owned by the users/groups web1 resp. web2:

mkdir -p /var/www/web1/web
chown web1:web1 /var/www/web1/web
mkdir -p /var/www/web2/web
chown web2:web2 /var/www/web2/web

We will run PHP using suExec; suExec's document root is /var/www, as the following command shows:

/usr/sbin/suexec -V

[root@server1 ~]# /usr/sbin/suexec -V
 -D AP_DOC_ROOT="/var/www"
 -D AP_GID_MIN=100
 -D AP_HTTPD_USER="apache"
 -D AP_LOG_EXEC="/var/log/httpd/suexec.log"
 -D AP_SAFE_PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"
 -D AP_UID_MIN=500
 -D AP_USERDIR_SUFFIX="public_html"
[root@server1 ~]#

Therefore we cannot call the PHP binary (/usr/bin/php-cgi) directly because it is located outside suExec's document root. As suExec does not allow symlinks, the only way to solve the problem is to create a wrapper script for each web site in a subdirectory of /var/www; the wrapper script will then call the PHP binary /usr/bin/php-cgi. The wrapper script must be owned by the user and group of each web site, therefore we need one wrapper script for each web site. I'm going to create the wrapper scripts in subdirectories of /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts, e.g. /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1 and /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web2.

mkdir -p /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1
mkdir -p /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web2

vi /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1/php-fcgi-starter

#!/bin/sh
PHPRC=/etc/
export PHPRC
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=8
exec /usr/bin/php-cgi

vi /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web2/php-fcgi-starter

#!/bin/sh
PHPRC=/etc/
export PHPRC
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=5000
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=8
exec /usr/bin/php-cgi

The PHPRC line contains the directory where the php.ini file is located (i.e., /etc/ translates to /etc/php.ini). PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS is the maximum number of requests before an fcgid process is stopped and a new one is launched. PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN defines the number of PHP children that will be launched.

The php-fcgi-starter scripts must be executable, and they (and the directories they are in) must be owned by the web site's user and group:

chmod 755 /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1/php-fcgi-starter
chmod 755 /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web2/php-fcgi-starter
chown -R web1:web1 /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1
chown -R web2:web2 /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web2

Now we create the Apache vhosts for www.example1.com and www.example2.com. Add the following two vhosts at the end of /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:

vi /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

[...]
NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.example1.com
  ServerAlias example1.com
  ServerAdmin webmaster@example1.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/web1/web/

  <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
    SuexecUserGroup web1 web1
    PHP_Fix_Pathinfo_Enable 1
    <Directory /var/www/web1/web/>
      Options +ExecCGI
      AllowOverride All
      AddHandler fcgid-script .php
      FCGIWrapper /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1/php-fcgi-starter .php
      Order allow,deny
      Allow from all
    </Directory>
  </IfModule>

  # ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
  # CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
  ServerSignature Off

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName www.example2.com
  ServerAlias example2.com
  ServerAdmin webmaster@example2.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/web2/web/

  <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
    SuexecUserGroup web2 web2
    PHP_Fix_Pathinfo_Enable 1
    <Directory /var/www/web2/web/>
      Options +ExecCGI
      AllowOverride All
      AddHandler fcgid-script .php
      FCGIWrapper /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web2/php-fcgi-starter .php
      Order allow,deny
      Allow from all
    </Directory>
  </IfModule>

  # ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
  # CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
  ServerSignature Off

</VirtualHost>

Make sure you fill in the right paths (and the correct user and group in the SuexecUserGroup lines).

Reload Apache afterwards:

/etc/init.d/httpd reload