---
title: "Compiling PHP for Development"
date: 2021-08-12
categories: development
author: Lukas Winkler
cc_license: true
description: "A quick guide on how to compile PHP (especially new beta versions before packaging) to be able to test software with it"
aliases:
- /books/compiling-php-for-development
---

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## Preparation

This guide assumes that you will download the source to `~/php/source` and install PHP to `~/php/php8`. It should also work on all Linux/MacOS system assuming you have the right dependencies installed.

If you are using Debian/Ubuntu, you need to have the build-essentials installed.

```bash
➜ sudo apt install build-essential
```

## Fetching source

The names of the directories of course change depending on which version of PHP you are installing

```bash
➜ cd ~/php/source
➜ wget https://downloads.php.net/~ramsey/php-8.1.0beta2.tar.gz
➜ tar xzf php-8.1.0beta2.tar.gz
➜ rm php-8.1.0beta2.tar.gz
```

## Configuration and Building

This assumes you are going to run PHP as your user (instead of `www-data` or similar as normaly in production).

Create a new file called `build.sh` inside the source directory with the following content:

```bash
#!/bin/bash

set -e
set -x

INSTALL_DIR=/home/lukas/php/php8
USER=$(whoami)

mkdir -p $INSTALL_DIR

./configure --prefix=$INSTALL_DIR \
    --enable-bcmath \
    --enable-fpm \
    --with-fpm-user="$USER" \
    --with-fpm-group="$USER" \
    --disable-cgi \
    --enable-mbstring \
    --enable-shmop \
    --enable-sockets \
    --enable-sysvmsg \
    --enable-sysvsem \
    --enable-sysvshm \
    --with-zlib \
    --with-curl \
    --without-pear \
    --with-openssl \
    --enable-pcntl \
    --with-password-argon2 \
    --with-sodium \
    --with-zip \
    --enable-mysqlnd \
    --with-pdo-mysql \
    --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd \
    --enable-gd \
    --with-freetype \
    --enable-opcache
```

This should enable all PHP modules [Matomo](https://matomo.org/) needs to run. If you need more, adjust the lines above (and don't forget to end them with a `\`)

Now run this script:
```bash
➜ chmod +x build.sh
➜ ./build.sh
```

Afterwards we can start compiling PHP:
```bash
➜ make
# or if you want to use 6 processes in parallel 
➜ make -j 6
```

You can now optionally run the tests (don't worry if a few of them fail in beta versions)

```bash
➜ make test
```

And the last step is to install PHP to our `INSTALL_DIR`:
```bash
➜ make install
```

## Run php-cli

You can now run php-cli from `~/php/php8/bin/php` and also start the built-in server:

```bash
➜ echo "<?php var_dump('Hello World!');" | ~/php/php8/bin/php 
string(12) "Hello World!"
➜ ~/php/php8/bin/php -S localhost:1234
```

If this is enough for you, you can stop here.
Otherwise, continue with setting up php-fpm.

## Set up php-fpm

If you want to use the compiled PHP version from your webserver (e.g. Apache or Nginx), you need to use php-fpm.

```bash
➜ cd ~/php/php8
➜ cp etc/php-fpm.conf.default etc/php-fpm.conf
➜ cp etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf.default etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
# adapt the two config files if needed
```
If you want to improve performance, you might want to increase `pm.max_children`, `pm.start_servers` and `pm.max_spare_servers`.

You can also create a `lib/php.ini` with custom settings:

```ini
display_startup_errors = Off
display_errors = Off
log_errors=1
error_log=/tmp/phperror
memory_limit = 512M
```

Now you can start php-fpm using
```bash
➜ ~/php/php8/sbin/php-fpm --nodaemonize
```

php-fpm will be listening on port 9000 by default.

Now you can update your webserver configuration to point to your php-fpm.
How exactly this works, depends on your webserver. But in Nginx something like this will work:

```nginx
location ~ \.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
}
```