Urania

As I mentioned in my blog post earlier today, I have been having issues using the JpGraph graphing package for PHP with Apple’s built-in PHP under MacOS 10.5. It appears Apple’s security efforts have “secured” PHP to the point where JpGraph (and PDFLib) will not function properly under the built-in PHP. [Note added after initial post: The rest of this post describes installing Apache 2 and PHP under MacPorts and configuring it to be similar to Apple's built-in servers.  This appeared to solve my problems, but then my Mac locked-up [possibly related] and on reboot, the new MacPorts-based PHP installation started throwing the same errors as Apple’s built-in PHP.  More information on this problem is located in my newer post on the issue.]

I had tried to alleviate the solution previously by compiling a version of PHP myself that would be compatible with Apple’s built-in Apache 2 web server. This turned out to be difficult because Apple’s Apache 2 web server is a “universal” binary, meaning it contains four seperate binaries (for 32-bit PowerPC, 64-bit PowerPC, 32-bit Intel, and 64-bit Intel processors). As such I needed to compile a “universal” PHP binary and since I wanted MySQL support, I needed a “universal” MySQL binary. This turned out to be too much for this astronomer, so I gave up on making a new PHP that was compatible with Apple’s built-in web server.

So I bit the bullet and after reviewing the options, I decided to install Apache 2 and PHP under MacPorts. If you have read the other posts on this site, you know I really like MacPorts as the quick and dirty way to get many things running on the Mac. However, despite this, I don’t like installing MacPorts for items Apple provides, instead generally preferring to use Apple’s “pre-installed” versions. Furthermore, there have been a lot of complaints on the MacPorts mailing lists about various issues compiling PHP5. So I wasn’t as quick to jump onto the MacPorts bandwagon for PHP as I am for other problems. However, since I am familiar with MacPorts, I decided this was the best approach for getting my online Finder Charts to work again.

The process proved reasonably painless, especially since I was able to review this blog post, where he lays out pretty much what to do. However, since I wanted to achieve maximum compatibility with Apple’s built-in web server and PHP setup, in case I wanted to switch back, I ended up doing things a little bit differently, so I am outlining my steps here.

1. I started by installing the MacPorts version of Apache 2 using the command sudo port install apache2
2. Next, I had to create the Apache 2 configuration files and edit them. I started by copying the sample configuration file

   sudo cp /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf.sample /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf

   and then editing /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf with my favorite text editor to change the configuration to match the that of the built-in Apache 2 server a closely as possible. My matching the configuration of Apple’s built-in server, I can switch back to it with relative ease if I choose to do so later. So I made the following changes to /opt/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf:
3. 1. I changed DocumentRoot to "/Library/WebServer/Documents" as is the case with Apple’s built-in server.
   2. To allow index.php files to be used as directory indexes, I changed

      DirectoryIndex index.html

      to

      DirectoryIndex index.html index.php

      (I don’t know why this isn’t necessary with Apple’s built-in server, but it was necessary here).
   3. I changed to and in that directory block of code, I added “MultiViews” to the Options line.
   4. I changed to in order to prevent the listing of .DS_Store files in directory listings by the web server.
   5. Before the ErrorLog block of code in this file, I added the following lines copied from Apple’s default Apache 2 configuration:

      #
      # Apple specific filesystem protection.
      #
      
      Order allow,deny
      Deny from all
      Satisfy All
      
      Order allow,deny
      Deny from all
      Satisfy All

   6. I changed ErrorLog to "/private/var/log/apache2/error_log"
   7. I changed CustomLog to "/private/var/log/apache2/access_log common"
   8. To match Apple’s Apache 2 server configuration, I changed ScriptAliasMatch to

      ^/cgi-bin/((?!(?i:webobjects)).*$) "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/$1"

   9. I changed back to
   10. I added the following Handles to the “To use CGI Scripts” block of code:

       AddHandler imap-file .map
       AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
       AddHandler cgi-script .pl

   11. I uncommended the following lines near the end of the file:

   12. [OPTIONAL] Because I use the WebDAV server on my server, I also uncommented
   13. Finally, I added the following lines to the end of the file in order to allow loading of the PHP5 configuration

4. Next, I editted /opt/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-userdir.conf and added the following to the end of the file

   #
   # Users might not be in /Users/*/Sites, so use user-specific config files.
   #
   Include /private/etc/apache2/users/*.conf

5. [OPTIONAL] Since I use the built-in WebDAV server, I made a backup of the WebDAV configuration, then copied the Default MacOS X one, because I have spent a lot of time tweaking it previously and I didn’t want to have to reinvent the wheel. 

   sudo cp /opt/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-dav.conf /opt/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-dav.conf.orig
   sudo cp /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-dav.conf /opt/local/apache2/conf/extra/httpd-dav.conf

6. I had to install PHP5 with MacPorts. Since I wanted to add support for Apache 2 and MySQL, I entered the command: sudo port install php5 +apache2 +mysql5 +pear which has the side effect of installing MacPorts version of MySQL as well. Assuming everything goes well, after a few minutes (this takes longer than the apache2 install earlier), the installation will end. At this point we can configure the Apache 2 mod_php module by typing: 

   cd /opt/local/apache2/modules/opt/local/apache2/bin/apxs -a -e -n "php5" libphp5.so

7. [OPTIONAL] Next, I had to create the PHP5 configuration file and edit it. I started by copying the sample configuration file sudo cp /opt/local/etc/php.ini-dist /opt/local/etc/php.ini and then editing /opt/local/etc/php.ini to make it match /etc/php.ini (which Apple’s built-in PHP uses). All the changes I made were optional and related to the specifics of my setup. The only interesting one was that I wanted to continue to use the MySQL.com binary distribution of MySQL server, so I set the following variables in /opt/local/etc/php.ini: 
   1. mysql.default_port from “” to 3306
   2. mysql.default_socket from “” to /private/tmp/mysql.sock
   3. mysqli.default_socket from “” to /private/tmp/mysql.sock
8. I deactivated Apple’s built-in web server by turning off Web Sharing in the Sharing.prefPane.
9. Finally, I launched the new webserver (and set it up for launching on boot-up in the future) by typing

   sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.apache2.plist

   If this breaks anything, I can reverse the process by typing

   sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.apache2.plist

10. [OPTIONAL] I like the ability to turn on and off the Apache webserver from the command line using apachectl. I can “emulate” this in /bin/tcsh (my prefered shell) by adding the following command to the ~/.tcshrc file:

    alias apache2ctl 'sudo /opt/local/etc/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.apache2/apache2.wrapper'

    After which I can bring down the server by typing apache2ctl stop and restart it by typing apache2ctl start.

Applying the latest MacOS X Security Update from Apple today reminded me of the problems I have had with PHP on Leopard. The Security Patch brought Leopard up to version 5.2.6. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fix a problem I have been having with PHP5 under Leopard.

While I’m sure Apple did this for security reasons, since upgrading the Leopard, I have had a problem with scripts that use the JpGraph plotting PHP library crashing. After looking in /var/logl/apache2/error_log, I see the following eror message:

The process has forked and you cannot use this CoreFoundation functionality safely. You MUST exec().
Break on __THE_PROCESS_HAS_FORKED_AND_YOU_CANNOT_USE_THIS_COREFOUNDATION_FUNCTIONALITY___YOU_MUST_EXEC__() to debug.

I’ve been trying to figure out why this has been happening for a while. Johan Persson at JpGraph and I exchanged some emails where he outlined for me how this was a problem with Apple’s pre-built version of PHP5 since JpGraph is not fork()-ing any processes. Well, today I decided to look into this again and discovered that the PDFLIb folks have documented this problem a little better, copying from their documentation here:

PHP on Mac OS X. Apple’s PHP version which is bundled with Mac OS X does not work with PDFlib DSOs. To use PHP with PDFlib on Mac OS X you need third-party PHP packages such as MAMP, XAMP[P] for Mac, or Marc Liyanage’s version from www.entropy.ch. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) adds new complications. As described in developer.apple.com/releasenotes/CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.html it is no longer possible to use CoreFoundation functions after a call to fork( ) without exec( ). However, CoreFoundation functions are required for PDFlib’s host font feature, and the critical sequence above is used in the combination of Apache and PHP. This may trigger the following error message in the Apache log (and can even crash the Apache process):

The process has forked and you cannot use this CoreFoundation functionality safely. You MUST exec().
Break on _THE_PROCESS_HAS_FORKED_AND_YOU_CANNOT_USE_THIS_COREFOUNDATION_FUNCTIONALITY___YOU_MUST_EXEC__() to debug.

In order to avoid this problem you can run PHP as a CGI on Apache, or disable the host font feature in PDFlib[.]

Sure enough, JpGraph is using host fonts. Damn.

Unfortunately, the Marc Liyanage’s version of PHP5 for Leopard from www.entropy.ch is still in beta and the last update of MAMP was quite a long time ago. And while XAMPP for MacOS X looks promising (at least it has been updated recently), I would really like to keep on using the MySQL server I already have running. So for now, I try installing Apache 2 and PHP using MacPorts.

[See my subsequent posts about getting the MacPorts version of Apache 2 and PHP going and the subsequent continuation of the problem after a reboot.  There is more information about this issue there.]