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Hosting PHP on IIS 7.0Best Practices for shared hosting

Microsoft®

Hosting Deployment Accelerator

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Agenda

PHP SetupFastCGI architectureHosting guidance

Multiple PHP versionsPer-site PHP configurationProviding URL rewritingManaging CPU usage

Summary

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PHP setup steps

Copy binaries •Use zip file with non-thread safe binaries•Alternatively - download PHP installer

Configure php.ini•fastcgi.impersonate = 1•cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1•open_basedir = “C:\Websites\”

Configure IIS•Enable CGI•Configure FastCGI handler mapping for *.php•Change FastCGI settings

Test that it works •C:\php\php-cgi.exe –info•http://localhost/phpinfo.php

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FastCGI process pool for PHP5

FastCGI Handler Architecture

IIS Worker Process

Read Configuration

Authenticate

Authorize

Map Request

Handle Request

Send Response

Log Request

FastCGI protocol over named pipes or TCP

FastCGI

ASP.NET

Static

Request queue

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App Pool #1 (user1)

Web site #1

Recommended configuration

FastCGI Process Pool

… …

App Pool #2 (user2)

Web site #2

FastCGI Process Pool

App Pool #N (userN)

Web site #N

FastCGI Process pool

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Recommended configuration

Configure security isolationOne app pool per web siteEnable FastCGI impersonation

Prevent failures caused by PHP recyclingset PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS >= instanceMaxRequests

For higher site density:use dynamicIdleThresholdreduce idleTimeoutreduce maxInstances (may affect performance)

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Enhance your PHP hosting offer

Allow customers to choose PHP version

• Support both PHP 4.X and 5.X on the same server

Provide your customers with flexibility of changing PHP configuration

• Enable hosting of PHP apps that require tweaks to php.ini

Easily enable sub-domains

• Use URL rewrite module to implement sub-domains support

Provide URL rewriting functionality

• Expose rich set of IIS tools for creating and testing of rewrite rules

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Multiple PHP versions

App Pool #1 (user1)

Web site #1

Process Pool for PHP 5

App Pool #2 (user2)

Web site #2

Process Pool for PHP 4

C:\PHP526\php-cgi.exe

C:\PHP447\php.exe

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Per-site PHP configurationConfiguring FastCGI process pool

<fastCgi> <application fullPath="C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe" arguments="-d my.website=website1"> <environmentVariables> <environmentVariable name="PHPRC" value="C:\WebSites\website1" /> </environmentVariables> </application></fastCgi>

Combination of fullPath and arguments uniquely identify FastCGI process pool definition

PHPRC environment variable contains path to the php.ini file

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Per-site PHP configurationConfiguring Handler Mapping

<system.webServer> <handlers accessPolicy="Read, Script"> <add name="PHP via FastCGI" path="*.php" verb="*" modules="FastCgiModule" scriptProcessor="C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe|-d my.website=website2" resourceType="Unspecified" requireAccess="Script" /> </handlers></system.webServer>

Reference FastCGI process pool by concatenating [fullPath]|[arguments]

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Providing URL rewriting

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Manage CPU utilization

Windows Server Resource Manager (WSRM)Available in all SKU’s of WS2008Ensures that process gets *at least* the configured CPU percentageKicks in only if overall CPU load is more than 70%

IIS team tested with 4000 web sites

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Using WSRM

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Best practices summary

Follow IIS 7.0 security isolation guidelinesLeverage FastCGI/IIS features to enhance hosting offer:

Multiple PHP versionsPer-site PHP configurationURL rewriting

Use WSRM to manage w3wp.exe and php-cgi.exe CPU utilization

More information at http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/208/fastcgi-with-php

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Q & A