How to Compile php v.5.5.10 from Sources

This note covers how to install the latest version of PHP on your server from source, using PHP 5.5.10 + CentOS 6.5 as an example.

First, download the source code from an official mirror. I live in Ukraine, and php.net offered me this list of mirrors.

You can follow this link, and based on your location it’ll suggest mirrors located in your country.

I’ll walk through installing php v.5.5.10 on a clean CentOS 6.5 server.

So, download and unpack:

wget -O php-5.5.10.tar.gz http://ua1.php.net/get/php-5.5.10.tar.gz/from/this/mirror  
tar xf php-5.5.10.tar.gz && cd php-5.5.10

To make it all work we need a C++ compiler.

There isn’t one on a clean server, so we need to install it:

yum install gcc make

At this stage the configurator will basically run and die with this error:

checking libxml2 install dir no  
checking for xml2-config path  
configure: error: xml2-config not found. Please check your libxml2 installation.

We need to get libxml on board:

yum install libxml2-devel

At this stage the configure script runs without errors. It finds what’s on the system and what it can build php with. I won’t go into detail on the options enabled by default, I’ll just say that with that set you won’t get far. There’s nothing in that list that would help us run even a simple little site.

I’ll be building php with support for the following modules:

• curl
• mysql
• mysqli
• mhash
• pdo-mysql
• gd
• mcrypt
• mbstring
• openssl
• pcre
• soap
• Apache module
• zlib

First let’s enable the Epel repository:

wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm  
rpm -Uvh epel-release-6*.rpm

Next we need to get the required packages:

yum install mysql-devel httpd-devel gd-devel libmcrypt-devel mcrypt bison-devel mhash-devel libcurl-devel

Now we can build:

./configure -bindir=/usr/bin -with-config-file-path=/etc -with-curl -with-mhash -with-mysql -with-mysqli -with-gd -with-pdo-mysql -with-mcrypt -enable-mbstring -with-openssl -with-pcre-regex -enable-soap -with-apxs2 -with-zlib

a bit of an explanation:
--bindir - path to save the binaries
--with-config-file-path - path where php.ini is stored

By default php gets put in the /usr/local folder.

Next we install:

make && make install

During the install, make should add this line to httpd.conf. If it doesn’t - do it yourself:
LoadModule php5_module /usr/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so

The source code folder provides 2 types of php.ini. Depending on what the server is used for, run one of the following commands:

cp php.ini-development /etc/php.ini

or

cp php.ini-production /etc/php.ini

Teach Apache to work with php files:
nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf

<FilesMatch \.php$>  
	SetHandler application/x-httpd-php  
</FilesMatch>

When restarting Apache I got this error:

Starting httpd: httpd: Syntax error on line 216 of /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf: Cannot load /usr/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so into server: /usr/lib/httpd/modules/libphp5.so: cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied

That’s because Selinux blocks adding modules to Apache. You can temporarily disable SeLinux with the command:

/usr/sbin/setenforce 0

To disable SeLinux for good, in the /etc/selinux/config file
Replace:
SELINUX=enforcing
with
SELINUX=disabled

Now you can create a php.php file in the /var/www/html folder with the following content:

<?php phpinfo() ?>

And open it in a browser. If everything works - you’ll see this picture: