How to Setup Apache with PHP and FastCGI on CentOS/RHEL 7/6

FastCGI functionality is very similar to working of CGI. FastCGI makes differences at few places than CGI like FastCGI processes are persistent and they can handle more than one requests per processes. FastCGI allows running programmes on remote machines by multiplexes the environment information, standard input, output and error over a single full-duplex connection. Read more about FastCGI.

• Install Apache with PHP-FPM/FastCGI on Ubuntu

This tutorial will help you to setup Apache web server with PHP and FastCGI on Red Hat based systems.

Step 1 – Setup Yum Repositories

Fast of all, enable REMI and EPEL yum repositories on your system. These repositories provide lastest packages for RedHat based systems.

• Enable EPEL and REMI Repository

Step 2 – Install Apache2

Apache2 packages are available with name HTTPD for Redhat based systems. You can use following commands to install latest available Apache2 (HTTPD) packages in configured repositories on your system.

yum install httpd

Step 3 – Install PHP and FastCGI

After installing Apache web server, let’s install PHP and FastCGI Apache module on your system. You can install any version of required PHP or simply use the following command to install available PHP packages. This tutorial doesn’t include installing PHP modules, So you can also install required PHP modules.

yum install php php-cli mod_fcgid

Step 4 – Disable Default PHP Handler

Before using PHP/FastCGI handler, you have to disable default PHP handler on your system. Edit PHP configuration file for Apache (/etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf) in your favorite text editor and comment following lines showing in below screenshot by adding the hash (#) sign at the start of the lines.

Step 5 – Setup FastCGI Handler

At this point we have successfully installed Apache FastCGI Module. Now nagigate to /var/www/cgi-bin directory, If not exists create directory. Then create a php.fastcgi file and add the following content to this file. Also make sure the php.ini file and php-cgi exist on your system.

vim /var/www/cgi-bin/php.fastcgi

#!/bin/bash

PHPRC="/etc/php.ini"
PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=4
PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=1000
export PHPRC
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS
exec /usr/bin/php-cgi

Change permissions of php.fastcgi script to make it executable by Apache server.

chown apache:apache /var/www/cgi-bin/php.fastcgi
chmod +x /var/www/cgi-bin/php.fastcgi

Step 6 – Setup VirtualHost with FastCGI

Finally, create a VirtualHost in our Apache configuration file with FastCGI support. VirtualHosts are used to configure multiple sites with single IP. Below configuration will allow siting svr1.tecadmin.net with any system IP on port 80.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName svr1.tecadmin.net
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html
    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/var/www/cgi-bin/"
    <Directory "/var/www/html">
            Options +Indexes +FollowSymLinks +ExecCGI
            AddHandler php-fastcgi .php
            Action php-fastcgi /cgi-bin/php.fastcgi
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Step 7 – Restart Apache and Test Setup

At this point, you have completed Apache configuration with FastCGI support. Let’s restart Apache server using the following command.

service httpd restart

Now create a file in your document root /var/www/html/info.php and add following content to check detailed php information.

Access your Apache server using IP address for domain name followed by php.info file in your web browser like below. This will show the current configuration of PHP in your system. Look the value of Server API option, if you get this value CGI/FastCGI, it means server is properly configured to use FastCGI.

http://svr1.tecadmin.net/info.php