Bit more about PHP

• PHP info
• Technical background of the installation.

Also fond of PHP?
It was quit a challenge to get this going. Below the steps taken are written down.
But first, some information about numbers in the MovieApp database, queried from the Oracle database, with PHP :-)

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As for now, 24/03/2023 07:20, we have these numbers in the database:

Movies	85820
Actors	417257
Writers	61682
Directors	34700

Technical background of the installation.

The infrastructure configuration is as follows, hosted at cloud.oracle.com:

• Oracle database Version 19c
• Linux Ubuntu 20.04
• PHP 8.0
• Apache 2
• Oracle Instant Client 21.1
• OCI8

Let's not pretend it was easy. But finally we found a way to get it on.
Looking at the list and image above, you got the feeling, it was a long walk. The bottomline was: get Oracle client software in a place the webserver can reach it, and get PHP ready with the OCI8 module to communicate with the Oracle Client software. So, what all happened (sudo where necessary):

• PHP 8.0
  Add the repository with PHP8, it is not default in Ubuntu 20.04
  $ sudo apt install software-properties-common
  $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php
  We install php8.0 together with Apache webserver.
  $ sudo apt update
  $ sudo apt install php8.0 libapache2-mod-php8.0
  We choose for FPM, the Fast CGI Process Manager for PHP:
  $ sudo apt update
  $ udo apt install php8.0-fpm libapache2-mod-fcgid
  Restart Apache:
  $ systemctl restart apache2
• Oracle Instantclient
  url: https://www.oracle.com/database/technologies/instant-client/linux-x86-64-downloads.html (for linux)
  Download the basic and the tools, f.e.:
  
  instantclient-basic-linux.x64-21.1.0.0.0.zip
  instantclient-tools-linux.x64-21.1.0.0.0.zip
  
  Upload these zip-files to the Ubuntu server.
  
  Create a directory for the files:
  $ mkdir /opt/oracle
  Put the zip files in /opt/oracle and unzip them.
  $ unzip instantclient-basic-linux.x64-21.1.0.0.0.zip
  $ unzip instantclient-tools-linux.x64-21.1.0.0.0.zip
  
  For ease of reading we moved instantclient_21_1 to instantclient.
  
  Check that symlinks are present for libclntsh.so and libocci.so. Otherwise create them, like:
  $ ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient/libclntsh.so.12.1 /opt/oracle/instantclient/libclntsh.so
  $ ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient/libocci.so.12.1 /opt/oracle/instantclient/libocci.so
  
  Add the Oracle Instantclient folder to ldconfig:
  $ echo /opt/oracle/instantclient > /etc/ld.so.conf.d/oracle-instantclient
  And load it:
  $ ldconfig
  Give the Apache webserver access to it:
  $ sudo chown -R root:www-data /opt/oracle
• OCI
  We need more PHP files to proceed with OCI8:
  $ apt-get install php-dev php-pear build-essential libaio1
  Update the pecl channel:
  $ pecl channel-update pecl.php.net
  Here it comes, finally:
  $ pecl install oci8
  Once asked, enter:
  instantclient,/opt/oracle/instantclient
  Then, glueing it all together, tell PHP to load the OCI8 extension and Apache where to look. Find the php.ini files, like
  $ find / -name php.ini
  Edit them, add the OCI8 extension: extension=oci8.so
  $ sudo vi /etc/php/8.0/fpm/php.ini
  $ sudo vi /etc/php/8.0/apache2/php.ini
  $ sudo vi /etc/php/8.0/cli/php.ini
  
  We need to set environment variables, like TNS_ADMIN, ORACLE_HOME, and PATH.
  $ export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/oracle/instantclient
  $ export PATH=$PATH:/opt/oracle/instantclient
  $ export TNS_ADMIN=/opt/oracle/instantclient/network/admin
  You would probably look for that in /etc/environment and/or in .bashrc or .bash_profile.
  
  Apache: edit the following with vi, vim or nano directly, or try with the following echo's:
  $ echo "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/oracle/instantclient" >> /etc/apache2/envvars
  $ echo "export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/oracle/instantclient" >> /etc/apache2/envvars
  
  $ echo "LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/oracle/instantclient:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" >> /etc/environment
• Don't forget to edit sqlnet.ora and tns_names in /opt/oracle/instantclient/network/admin
• Restarting the server now is not such a bad idea.
  $ reboot
  Then, after the server is up again, check and go!
  The following should give a reply.
  $ php -m | grep 'oci8'
  (in case of problems, you could check /etc/php/8.0/fpm/conf.d and mods_available.)
  
  Restart the PHP Fast Process Manager
  $ service php8.0-fpm restart
• Check with info.php page, like
  <?php
  phpinfo();

Part of info.php:



... and relax, you can breath again