PHP

PHP applications are supported through Apache and mod_php, and require very little configuration to deploy.

Deployment

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

The stackato.yml must specify the php as the framework type:

framework:
        type: php

For full details on the stackato.yml and all possible options, see Configuration With stackato.yml.

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 Stackato application under the control of the Health Manager.

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

Example

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

Database Services

DATABASE_URL

Authentication details for your configured database services can be found in the $_SERVER variable, under DATABASE_URL. Here is an example of getting the correct credentials.

<?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'];
?>

VCAP_SERVICES

<?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 stackato.yml and manifest.yml is exposed to the browser. Note that manifest.yml is generated automatically, even when you don't use stackato.yml.

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 (e.g. move index.php to www/index.php) and explicitly set your document-root in stackato.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.

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 stackato.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 = $MEMCACHE_URL" >> "$STACKATO_APP_ROOT"/apache/php/sessions.ini