PHP¶

Deployment¶

You will need at least two files to deploy a PHP app on Helion Stackato: index.php, and manifest.yml.

The manifest must specify the php as the framework type:

framework:
  type: php

For full details on manifest.yml and all possible options, see Manifest.yml Options.

Application URL¶

Some applications require the user to specify the APP_URL. Below is an example on how to obtain the correct urls:

$appinfo = getenv("VCAP_APPLICATION");
$appinfo_json = json_decode($appinfo,true);
$admin = $appinfo_json['uris'][0];

Worker Applications¶

Non-HTTP apps that run as a Helion Stackato application under the control of the Health Manager.

To deploy worker applications, you need to use the command: key and set the processes: web: key to Null (~).

name: php-app
framework: php
command: php worker.php
processes:
  web: ~

Database Services¶

<?php
    $url_parts = parse_url($_SERVER['DATABASE_URL']);
    $db_name = substr( $url_parts['path'], 1 );
    $db_connection_string = $url_parts['host'] . ':' . $url_parts['port'];

    // ** MySQL settings from resource descriptor ** //
    echo $db_name;
    echo $url_parts['user'];
    echo $url_parts['pass'];
    echo $url_parts['host'];
    echo $url_parts['port'];
?>

<?php
    $services = getenv("VCAP_SERVICES");
    $services_json = json_decode($services,true);
    $mysql_config = $services_json["mysql"][0]["credentials"];

    // ** MySQL settings from resource descriptor ** //
    echo $mysql_config["name"];
    echo $mysql_config["user"];
    echo $mysql_config["password"];
    echo $mysql_config["hostname"];
    echo $mysql_config["port"];
    );
?>

PHP.ini¶

Additional PHP ini files will be loaded from the $STACKATO_APP_ROOT/apache/php/ directory. Refer to the example below for more information.

Document Root Access¶

If your document root (the location of the main index.php file) is the main application directory, the information stored in manifest.yml is exposed to the browser.

To prevent exposing this information, you can use an .htaccess file in the document root directory with the following rule:

<filesmatch "^(manifest|stackato)\.yml$">
  order allow,deny
  deny from all
</filesmatch>

Alternatively, move your application into a subdirectory (for example, move index.php to www/index.php) and explicitly set your document-root in manifest.yml:

framework:
  document-root: www

Using the .htaccess file will generate an HTTP 403 Forbidden error if a user tries to access the denied files. Changing the document-root will generate an HTTP 404 Not Found error instead.

These techniques can be use to hide other files in your application source tree which you do not want exposed to end users.

SERVER_NAME and SERVER_PORT¶

Helion Stackato serves web applications port 80 and/or 443 at the router, but within the application container Apache will be running on a different port. PHP will report this internal IP address and port in the SERVER_ADDR and SERVER_PORT Apache environment variables respectively.

If your application makes use of these variables, you may need to adjust them by using an .htaccess file to set one or more RewriteRule directive to correct the server name or port in URLs.

Persistent Sessions (PHP)¶

One of the issues with managing a PHP application running multiple instances is dealing with user sessions.

If your application uses a shared filesystem service, you can store user sessions there. The following manifest.yml snippet creates a persistent filesystem service, creates a directory for sessions, and writes a PHP config file to set the path to the session directory:

services:
  ${name}-fs: filesystem
hooks:
  post-staging:
  - mkdir -p "$STACKATO_FILESYSTEM"/sessions
  - echo "session.save_path = $STACKATO_FILESYSTEM/sessions" > "$STACKATO_APP_ROOT"/apache/php/sessions.ini

For better performance, use a Memcached service for session storage instead:

services:
  ${name}-cache: memcached
hooks:
  post-staging:
  - echo "session.save_handler = memcached" > "$STACKATO_APP_ROOT"/apache/php/sessions.ini
  - echo "session.save_path = $MEMCACHED_URL" >> "$STACKATO_APP_ROOT"/apache/php/sessions.ini

PHP Modules¶

Additional modules for PHP can be added in the requirements section of manifest.yml (as Ubuntu packages) only if administrators have enabled an Ubuntu PPA for PHP 5.5. These modules are not available from the standard Ubuntu 12.04 repositories configured in Helion Stackato by default.