This page describes how to build and install Ice for PHP from source code. If you prefer, you can also download binary distributions for the supported platforms.

On this page:

PHP Build Requirements

Ice for PHP is expected to build and run properly on Windows and any recent Linux distribution for x86 and x86_64, and was extensively tested using the operating systems and PHP versions listed on our platforms page.

You will also need the Ice 3.5.1 development kit for C++, which you can install as a binary distribution or compile from source yourself.

Building the PHP Extension

Building Ice for PHP on Linux and OS X

This source distribution only supports building Ice for PHP as a dynamic PHP extension; the product of the build is a shared library that you must configure PHP to load.

First, change to Ice for PHP source subdirectory:

$ cd Ice-3.5.1/php

Edit config/Make.rules and review the build settings. For example, you may want to enable OPTIMIZE. If your PHP installation resides in a non-standard location, modify the PHP_HOME setting to contain the installation directory. If you are using PHP 5.3 or later and wish to use PHP namespaces, set USE_NAMESPACES=yes.

If you have not built Ice for C++ from the cpp subdirectory, then set the ICE_HOME environment variable to the directory containing  your Ice installation. For example, if Ice is installed in /opt/Ice-3.5.1, set ICE_HOME as follows:

$ export ICE_HOME=/opt/Ice-3.5.1

If you installed Ice using RPMs, set ICE_HOME as shown below:

$ export ICE_HOME=/usr

Run make to build the extension.

Building Ice for PHP on Windows

The Ice installer for Windows includes a precompiled extension for PHP 5.4.8 built with Visual Studio 2008 (Visual C++ 9) and compatible with the "Thread-safe VC9" distribution of PHP available on php.net. We encourage you to use this extension if possible, together with a compatible Web server.

The most common motivation for compiling the Ice extension yourself is to create an extension that is compatible with your existing environment, such as when your Web server or PHP interpreter is built with a different compiler.

To build the Ice extension, first download the PHP5 binary archive or Windows installer and install the distribution.

You will also need to download and extract the PHP5 sources (Ice for PHP requires the PHP header files). If you are using PHP 5.4, change to the PHP5 source directory and run the following commands:

> buildconf
> configure

You do not need to actually build PHP from source, but these two steps are necessary to generate header files that are required by the Ice extension.

If you have not built Ice for C++ from the cpp subdirectory then you need to set the ICE_HOME environment variable to the location of your Ice for C++ installation. For example:

> set ICE_HOME=C:\Program Files\ZeroC\Ice-3.5.1

Change to the Ice for PHP source directory:

> cd Ice-3.5.1\php

Open config\Make.rules.mak.php, review the comments, and make any necessary changes. In particular, you may need to change the values of PHP_HOME and PHP_BIN_HOME to refer to your PHP source and binary installations, respectively. If you compiled PHP from source, you should also review the setting of PHP_LIBDIR. If you are using PHP 5.3 or later and wish to use PHP namespaces, set USE_NAMESPACES=yes. Finally, if you are using a non-thread-safe PHP installation, set PHP_ZTS=no.

Run NMAKE to build the extension:

> nmake /f Makefile.mak

Upon successful completion, the Ice for PHP extension is created as lib\php_ice.dll (Release) or lib\php_iced.dll (Debug).

Installing the PHP Extension

Installing Ice for PHP on Linux & OS X

To install the Ice extension, you must move the extension's shared library into PHP's extension directory. This directory is determined by the PHP configuration directive extension_dir. You can determine the default value for this directive by running the command-line version of PHP with the -i option:

$ php -i

Review the output for a line like this:

extension_dir => /usr/lib/php/modules => /usr/lib/php/modules

Once you've copied the extension to PHP's extension directory, you will need to enable the extension in your PHP configuration. Your PHP installation likely supports the /etc/php.d configuration directory, which you can verify by examining the output of php -i and looking for the presence of --with-config-file-scan-dir in the "Configure Command" entry. If present, you can create a file in /etc/php.d that contains the directive to load the Ice extension. For example, create the file /etc/php.d/ice.ini containing the following line on Linux:

extension = IcePHP.so

Or on OS X:

extension = IcePHP.dy

If PHP does not support the /etc/php.d directory, determine the path name of PHP's configuration file as reported by the php -i command:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path => /etc/php.ini

Open the configuration file and append the following line on Linux:

extension = IcePHP.so

Or on OS X:

extension = IcePHP.dy

You can verify that PHP is loading the Ice extension by running the command shown below:

$ php -m

Look for ice among the installed modules. Note that your library search path (LD_LIBRARY_PATH on Linux or DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH on OS X) must include the directory containing the Ice shared libraries.

Read the PHP Dependencies and PHP Source Files sections below for more information about installing the Ice extension.

Installing Ice for PHP on Windows

To install the Ice extension, you must move the extension's shared library into PHP's extension directory. This directory is determined by the PHP configuration directive extension_dir. You can determine the default value for this directive by running the command-line version of PHP with the -i option:

> php -i

Review the output for a line like this:

extension_dir => C:\php5 => C:\php5

The directive may also be set to a relative path, such as:

extension_dir => ./ => ./

In the case of a relative path, the value is relative to the current working directory of the process. As a result, the working directory when running the command-line version of PHP will likely differ from the working directory when PHP is running as a Web server module. Using a typical installation of Apache as an example, the working directory is Apache's installation directory, therefore the extension must be copied to

\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2

Once you've copied the extension to the appropriate directory, you will need to enable the extension in your PHP configuration. First you must discover the location of PHP's configuration file (php.ini), which is also displayed by the -i option. Look for the following line:

Loaded Configuration File => C:\Program Files\PHP\php.ini

If you used the Windows installer for PHP, your Web server's configuration may have already been modified to load PHP. You can also review your Web server's settings to discover the location of php.ini. For example, PHP's Windows installer modifies Apache's configuration to add the following directives:

PHPIniDir "C:/Program Files/PHP/"
LoadModule php5_module "C:/Program Files/PHP/php5apache2_2.dll"

The PHPIniDir directive specifies the directory containing the php.ini file.

Open php.ini and append this directive:

extension = php_ice.dll

Read the PHP Dependencies and PHP Source Files sections below for more information about installing the Ice extension.

PHP Dependencies

PHP will need to be able to locate the libraries for the Ice run-time libraries and its third-party dependencies. On Unix-style platforms, these libraries are named as follows:

libIce
libIceUtil
libSlice
libbz2

On Windows, these DLLs are required:

icevc90_35.dll
iceutilvc90_35.dll
slicevc90_35.dll
bzip2_vc90.dll

In general, these libraries must reside in a directory of the user's PATH. For Web servers, the libraries may need to reside in a system directory. For example, on Linux you can add the directory containing the Ice run-time libraries to /etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig. On Windows, you can copy the DLLs to the C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory, or to the Apache installation directory.

You can verify that the Ice extension is installed properly by examining the output of the php -m command, or by calling the phpInfo() function from a script. For example, you can create a file in the Web server's document directory containing the following PHP script:

<?php
phpInfo();
?>

Then start a browser window and open the URL corresponding to this script. If the Ice extension is successfully installed, you will see an ice section among the configuration information.

Note that if you want to use IceSSL from the Ice extension, then PHP will also need access to the shared libraries for IceSSL and OpenSSL.

PHP Source Files

In addition to the binary Ice extension module and its library dependencies, you will also need to make the Ice for PHP source files available to your scripts. These files are located in the lib subdirectory and consist of the Ice run time definitions (Ice.php or Ice_ns.php) along with PHP source files generated from the Slice files included in the Ice distribution.

The Ice extension makes no assumptions about the location of these files, so you can install them anywhere you like. For example, you can simply include them in the same directory as your application scripts. Alternatively, if you prefer to install them in a common directory, you may need to modify PHP's include_path directive so that the PHP interpreter is able to locate these files. Another option is to modify the include path from within your script prior to including any Ice run-time file. Here is an example that assumes Ice is installed in /opt:

// PHP
ini_set('include_path',
ini_get('include_path') . PATH_SEPARATOR . '/opt/Ice-3.5.1/php');
require 'Ice.php'; // Load the core Ice run time definitions.

Running the PHP Tests

The test subdirectory contains PHP implementations of the core Ice test suite. Python is required to run the test suite.

The test suites require that the Ice for C++ tests be built in the cpp subdirectory of this source distribution. In addition, the scripts require that the CLI version of the PHP interpreter be available in your PATH.

To run all of the tests, do the following:

> python allTests.py

You can also run tests individually by changing to the test directory and running this command:

> python run.py

If everything worked out, you should see lots of "ok" messages. In case of a failure, the tests abort with "failed".

Web Server Permissions

The Web server normally runs in a special user account that may not necessarily have access to the Ice extension, its dependent libraries and PHP source files, and other resources such as Ice configuration and your application scripts. It is very important that you review the permissions of these files and verify that the Web server has sufficient access.

For example, on Windows the Apache server typically runs as a service in the "Local System" account. You will need to modify the access rights of the aforementioned files to grant access to this account. In a command window, you can use the cacls utility to establish the appropriate access rights. Assuming that you have copied the Ice extension and dependent DLLs to Apache's installation directory, you can modify the access rights as shown below:

cd \Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2
cacls php_ice.dll /G SYSTEM:F Administrators:F
cacls bzip2.dll /G SYSTEM:F Administrators:F
...

On Linux, Apache typically runs in the apache account, so you will either need to change the owner or group of the libraries and other resources, or modify their permissions to make them sufficiently accessible.

SELinux Notes for PHP

SELinux augments the traditional Unix permissions with a number of new features. In particular, SELinux can prevent the httpd daemon from opening network connections and reading files without the proper SELinux types.

If you suspect that your Ice for PHP application does not work due to SELinux restrictions, we recommend that you first try it with SELinux disabled. As root, run:

# setenforce 0

to disable SELinux until the next reboot of your computer.

If you want to run httpd with Ice for PHP and SELinux enabled, there are two steps you need to take. First, allow httpd to open network connections:

# setsebool httpd_can_network_connect=1

Add the -P option to make this setting persistent across reboots.

Second, make sure any .ice file used by your PHP scripts can be read by httpd. The enclosing directory also needs to be accessible. For example:

# chcon -R -t httpd_sys_content_t /opt/MyApp/slice