Servers-Netscape, iPlanet and SunONE

This section contains notes and hints specific to Netscape, iPlanet and SunONE webserver installs of PHP, both for Sun Solaris and Windows versions.

From PHP 4.3.3 on you can use PHP scripts with the NSAPI module to generate custom directory listings and error pages. Additional functions for Apache compatibility are also available. For support in current webservers read the note about subrequests.

You can find more information about setting up PHP for the Netscape Enterprise Server (NES) here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php4.html

Installing PHP with NES/iPlanet/SunONE Webserver on Sun Solaris

To build PHP with NES/iPlanet/SunONE webservers, enter the proper install directory for the --with-nsapi=[DIR] option. The default directory is usually /opt/netscape/suitespot/. Please also read /php-xxx-version/sapi/nsapi/nsapi-readme.txt.

  1. Install the following packages from http://www.sunfreeware.com/ or another download site:

    autoconf-2.13
    automake-1.4
    bison-1_25-sol26-sparc-local
    flex-2_5_4a-sol26-sparc-local
    gcc-2_95_2-sol26-sparc-local
    gzip-1.2.4-sol26-sparc-local
    m4-1_4-sol26-sparc-local
    make-3_76_1-sol26-sparc-local
    mysql-3.23.24-beta (if you want mysql support)
    perl-5_005_03-sol26-sparc-local
    tar-1.13 (GNU tar)

  2. Make sure your path includes the proper directories PATH=.:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin and make it available to your system export PATH.

  3. gunzip php-x.x.x.tar.gz (if you have a .gz dist, otherwise go to 4).

  4. tar xvf php-x.x.x.tar

  5. Change to your extracted PHP directory: cd ../php-x.x.x

  6. For the following step, make sure /opt/netscape/suitespot/ is where your netscape server is installed. Otherwise, change to the correct path and run:
    ./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
    --with-nsapi=/opt/netscape/suitespot/ \
    --enable-libgcc

  7. Run make followed by make install.

After performing the base install and reading the appropriate readme file, you may need to perform some additional configuration steps.

Configuration Instructions for NES/iPlanet/SunONE. Firstly you may need to add some paths to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment for SunONE to find all the shared libs. This can best done in the start script for your SunONE webserver. Windows users can probably skip this step. The start script is often located in: /path/to/server/https-servername/start. You may also need to edit the configuration files that are located in: /path/to/server/https-servername/config/.

  1. Add the following line to mime.types (you can do that by the administration server):
    type=magnus-internal/x-httpd-php exts=php

  2. Edit magnus.conf (for servers >= 6) or obj.conf (for servers < 6) and add the following, shlib will vary depending on your OS, for Unix it will be something like /opt/netscape/suitespot/bin/libphp4.so. You should place the following lines after mime types init.
    Init fn="load-modules" funcs="php4_init,php4_execute,php4_auth_trans" shlib="/opt/netscape/suitespot/bin/libphp4.so"
    Init fn="php4_init" LateInit="yes" errorString="Failed to initialize PHP!" [php_ini="/path/to/php.ini"]
    (PHP >= 4.3.3) The php_ini parameter is optional but with it you can place your php.ini in your webserver config directory.

  3. Configure the default object in obj.conf (for virtual server classes [SunONE 6.0+] in their vserver.obj.conf):
    <Object name="default">
    .
    .
    .
    .#NOTE this next line should happen after all 'ObjectType' and before all 'AddLog' lines
    Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" [inikey=value inikey=value ...]
    .
    .
    </Object>
    (PHP >= 4.3.3) As additional parameters you can add some special php.ini-values, for example you can set a docroot="/path/to/docroot" specific to the context php4_execute is called. For boolean ini-keys please use 0/1 as value, not "On","Off",... (this will not work correctly), e.g. zlib.output_compression=1 instead of zlib.output_compression="On"

  4. This is only needed if you want to configure a directory that only consists of PHP scripts (same like a cgi-bin directory):
    <Object name="x-httpd-php">
    ObjectType fn="force-type" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php"
    Service fn=php4_execute [inikey=value inikey=value ...]
    </Object>
    After that you can configure a directory in the Administration server and assign it the style x-httpd-php. All files in it will get executed as PHP. This is nice to hide PHP usage by renaming files to .html.

  5. Setup of authentication: PHP authentication cannot be used with any other authentication. ALL AUTHENTICATION IS PASSED TO YOUR PHP SCRIPT. To configure PHP Authentication for the entire server, add the following line to your default object:
    <Object name="default">
    AuthTrans fn=php4_auth_trans
    .
    .
    .
    </Object>

  6. To use PHP Authentication on a single directory, add the following:
    <Object ppath="d:\path\to\authenticated\dir\*">
    AuthTrans fn=php4_auth_trans
    </Object>

Installing PHP with NES/iPlanet/SunONE on Windows

To Install PHP as CGI (for Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet, SunONE, perhaps Fastrack), do the following:

More details about setting up PHP as a CGI executable can be found here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php.html

To Install PHP as NSAPI (for Netscape Enterprise Server, iPlanet, SunONE, perhaps Fastrack), do the following:

More details about setting up PHP as an NSAPI filter can be found here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php4.html

CGI environment and recommended modifications in php.ini

Important when writing PHP scripts is the fact that iPlanet/SunONE/Netscape is a multithreaded web server. Because of that all requests are running in the same process space (the space of the webserver itsself) and this space has only one environment. If you want to get CGI variables like PATH_INFO, HTTP_HOST etc. it is not the correct way to try this in the old PHP 3.x way with getenv() or a similar way (register globals to environment, $_ENV). You would only get the environment of the running webserver without any valid CGI variables!

Note: Why are there (invalid) CGI variables in the environment?

Answer: This is because you started the webserver process from the admin server which runs the startup script of the webserver, you wanted to start, as a CGI script (a CGI script inside of the admin server!). This is why the environment of the started webserver has some CGI environment variables in it. You can test this by starting the webserver not from the administration server. Use the unix command line as root user and start it manually - you will see there are no CGI-like environment variables.

Simply change your scripts to get CGI variables in the correct way for PHP 4.x by using the superglobal $_SERVER. If you have older scripts which use $HTTP_HOST,..., you should turn on register_globals in php.ini and change the variable order to (important: remove "E" from it, because you do not need the environment here):
variables_order = "GPCS"
register_globals = On

Special use for error pages or self-made directory listings (PHP >= 4.3.3)

You can use PHP to generate the error pages for "404 Not Found" or similar. Add the following line to the object in obj.conf for every error page you want to overwrite:
Error fn="php4_execute" code=XXX script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...]
where XXX ist the HTTP error code. Please delete any other Error directives which could interfere with yours. If you want to place a page for all errors that could exist, leave the code parameter out. Your script can get the HTTP status code with $_SERVER['ERROR_TYPE'].

Another possibility is to generate self-made directory listings. Just create a PHP script which displays a directory listing and replace the corresponding default Service line for type="magnus-internal/directory" in obj.conf with the following:
Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/directory" script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...]
For both error and directory listing pages the original URI and translated URI are in the variables $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'] and $_SERVER['PATH_TRANSLATED'].

Note about nsapi_virtual() and subrequests (PHP >= 4.3.3)

The NSAPI module now supports the nsapi_virtual() function (alias: virtual()) to make subrequests on the webserver and insert the result in the webpage. The problem is, that this function uses some undocumented features from the NSAPI library.

Under Unix this is not a problem, because the module automatically looks for the needed functions and uses them if available. If not, nsapi_virtual() is disabled.

Under Windows limitations in the DLL handling need the use of a automatic detection of the most recent ns-httpdXX.dll file. This is tested for servers till version 6.1. If a newer version of the SunONE server is used, the detection fails and nsapi_virtual() is disabled.

If this is the case, try the following: Add the following parameter to php4_init in magnus.conf/obj.conf:
Init fn=php4_init ... server_lib="ns-httpdXX.dll"
where XX is the correct DLL version number. To get it, look in the server-root for the correct DLL name. The DLL with the biggest filesize is the right one.

You can check the status by using the phpinfo() function.

Note: But be warned: Support for nsapi_virtual() is EXPERIMENTAL!!!