How to Setup Apache2 (HTTPD) with FastCGI and PHP on CentOS/RHEL 6/5

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 to run programmes on remote machines by multiplexes the environment information, standard input, output and error over a single full-duplex connection. Read more about FastCGI.

Step 1: Setup Yum Repositories

Latest Apache 2 server packages is available in CentAlt repository and mod_fastcgi is available in rpmforge repository, so add both repository in system. Below links will help you to configure required repositories.

RPMForge Repository Setup and CentAlt Repository Setup

Step 2: Install Apache2

Apache2 packages are available with name HTTPD for CentOS/RHEL. You can use following commands to install latest available Apache 2 package in configured repositories.

# yum install httpd

Step 3: Install PHP and FastCGI

After installing Apache web server, let’s install PHP and FastCGI Apache module using following command.

# yum install php php-cli mod_fastcgi

Step 4: Setup FastCGI

At this point we have successfully installed Apache FastCGI Module. Create a /var/www/cgi-bin/php.fastcgi file and add following content to this file.

# 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 5: 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 configuratin will allow to site 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 php5-fastcgi .php
            Action php5-fastcgi /cgi-bin/php.fastcgi
            AllowOverride All
            Order allow,deny
            Allow from All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Step 6: Restart Apache and Test Setup

At this point you have completed Apache configuration with FastCGI support. Let’s restart Apache server suing 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.

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

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