PHP and Oracle: Christopher Jones

PHP-FPM FastCGI Process Manager with Apache 2

cj — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:00:00 -0500

I've published some vanilla PHP 5.4.0 RPMs to make new feature testing easier.

Along with all the PHP 5.4 goodies, the php-fpm "FastCGI Process Manager" is available for the first time on oss.oracle.com. Php-fpm is an alternative FastCGI interface to PHP with various extra features such as load dependent spawning of processes. (For other features, see php-fpm.org). Php-fpm has been getting more and more traction in the PHP community and the EXPERIMENTAL flag was removed in PHP 5.4. You might want to test it out.

To use php-fpm with the default Apache web server, first install Oracle Linux 5.8 (64bit) using Oracle's free, public yum repository public-yum.oracle.com.

Install Apache, if not already installed:

  yum install httpd

Download and install the PHP 5.4 RPMs from oss.oracle.com/projects/php:

  rpm -i php54-common-5.4.0-1.el5.x86_64.rpm php54-fpm-5.4.0-1.el5.x86_64.rpm

Other extensions can also be installed, depending on the functionality you want to test.

Download and build FastCGI for Apache:

  wget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/mod_fastcgi-current.tar.gz
  tar -zxf mod_fastcgi-current.tar.gz
  cd mod_fastcgi-2.4.6
  cp Makefile.AP2 Makefile
  make top_dir=/usr/lib64/httpd

Install FastCGI as root:

  make top_dir=/usr/lib64/httpd install

Edit /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf and comment out any existing references to PHP you might previously have added for testing:

# LoadModule php5_module        modules/libphp5.so
# AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

Add the php-fpm configuration to httpd.conf:

  LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.so

  <IfModule mod_fastcgi.c>  
    FastCGIExternalServer /usr/sbin/php-fpm -host 127.0.0.1:9000
    AddHandler php-fastcgi .php  

    #<LocationMatch "/status">
    #  SetHandler php-fastcgi-virt
    #  Action php-fastcgi-virt /usr/sbin/php-fpm.fcgi virtual
    #</LocationMatch>

    Action php-fastcgi /usr/sbin/php-fpm.fcgi  
    ScriptAlias /usr/sbin/php-fpm.fcgi /usr/sbin/php-fpm  

    <Directory /usr/sbin>  
      Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks  
      SetHandler fastcgi-script  
      Order allow,deny  
      Allow from all  
    </Directory>  
  </IfModule>

Start php-fpm and Apache:

  service php-fpm start
  service httpd start

Test it out with your favorite script or create a file pi.php:

  <?php
    phpinfo();
  ?>

Save it in /var/www/html/pi.php or in $HOME/public_html/pi.php, if you have configured UserDir in httpd.conf.

In a browser load http://localhost/pi.php or http://localhost/~yourname/pi.php.

This will show the PHP configuration values.

To test php-fpm's built-in statistics, edit httpd.conf and uncomment the four lines of the LocationMatch section:

  <LocationMatch "/status">
    SetHandler php-fastcgi-virt
    Action php-fastcgi-virt /usr/sbin/php-fpm.fcgi virtual
  </LocationMatch>

Edit /etc/php-fpm.conf and uncomment the line:

  pm.status_path = /status

Restart php-fpm and Apache:

  service php-fpm restart
  service httpd restart

Run some load on the system:

  ab -c 10 -t 60 http://localhost/pi.php

Now http://localhost/status gives you the status of the server:

  pool:                 www
  process manager:      dynamic
  start time:           13/Mar/2012:14:25:53 -0700
  start since:          26
  accepted conn:        50001
  listen queue:         0
  max listen queue:     6
  listen queue len:     128
  idle processes:       2
  active processes:     1
  total processes:      3
  max active processes: 5
  max children reached: 1

The php-fpm.conf file documents other output formats for the statistics. It also shows the extensive functionality available with php-fpm.

Documentation on php-fpm is not ideal, but you can see some at http://php.net/manual/en/install.fpm.php. The php-fpm.org site has more, including a forum and wiki.

Php-fpm is commonly used in conjunction with the nginx webserver. For this, you will need to compile nginx yourself. Because php-fpm is installed and managed separately from the webserver, the php-fpm RPM will still be usable. Now that Apache 2.4 has been released with claims of improved performance, it will be interesting to see if web server popularity swings back towards Apache.

Finally, remember that the PHP RPMs on oss.oracle.com are for testing purposes only. They are not supported.

PHP 5.4.0 RPMs for 64bit Oracle Linux 5.x are available

cj — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:06:43 -0500

I've published some vanilla PHP 5.4.0 RPMs to make new feature testing easier for Oracle Linux 5.x 64 bit users. The standard set of RPMs is at oss.oracle.com/projects/php. The OCI8 extension is also available (this requires the free Oracle Instant Client 11.2 from ULN or OTN.)

Some of the features of PHP 5.4 are:

Improved memory usage and performance. Some impressive preliminary reports of the benefits include: http://news.php.net/php.internals/57760 and http://news.php.net/php.internals/57747.
File Upload progress support is natively implemented.

Support for Traits now allows code reuse:

    trait t1 {
	function m1() { echo "hi"; }
	function m2() { echo "bye"; }
    }

    class my_c1 {
	use t1;
	/*...*/
    }

    class my_c2 extends c2 {
	use t1;
	/*...*/
    }

A built-in HTTP server for development is included:
```
  php -S 127.0.0.1:8888
```
Improvements were made to the interactive PHP shell (when PHP is compiled with readline).
A shortened array syntax was introduced: $a = [1,2,3];
The default character set for several internal functions was changed to UTF-8.
Support for multibyte languages is now configurable at run-time instead of compile-time.
The value echo tag "<?=" is now always on.
Binary number support was added.
DTrace support was added.
A new typehint indicates a function argument must be callable.
Session entropy uses /dev/urandom or /dev/arandom by default for extra security if either is present at compile time.
Function call results can now be immediately dereferenced as arrays: foo()[0]
Class members can be accessed on instantiation: (new foo)->method()

For more changes see the migration documentation.

PHP 5.4 is out; your work begins now

cj — Fri, 2 Mar 2012 01:57:20 -0600

Exciting news: PHP 5.4 is out. Thanks to the release managers Stas & David for making it happen. The PHP code is syncing to mirrors. PHP documentation will take a day or two to build & sync. Take a look when it reaches you.

The announcement lists some of the features that have changed.

There is a current tidy up of documentation for new features and migration happening. There are some low priority bug fixes that are waiting merge. These came in during the extended release process and were left out to avoid destabilizing the code.

Some PECL extensions still need to make PHP 5.4 compatible releases. Rasmus helped out by making changes to some extension, but the package owners need to bundle up releases. Other extensions may need some work.

XDebug is due for a compatible release soon.

PHPUnit is said to be fine already.

APC has at least one pending fix too, for the "?:" operator.

In summary, PHP 5.4 is available and I expect this branch will stabilize quickly.

PHP VirtualBox VM has been refreshed

cj — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:19:05 -0600

While I was recently on summer vacation (yes, it is summer in half the world), the VirtualBox VM for PHP was refreshed to a more recent Zend Server/Oracle Linux/Oracle Database XE stack.

I just pulled the VM down, imported it and had it booting and serving PHP pages in a very few minutes. VirtualBox really is marvelous. There is a link to download the VM near the foot of the Oracle Technology Network Developer VM page.

PHP 5.3.9 RPMs Available for Testing

cj — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:06:44 -0600

I've updated my relatively "vanilla" PHP 5 RPMs to 5.3.9 on oss.oracle.com/projects/php. They are built for Oracle Linux 5.7 (and RHEL 5.7). I've included the OCI8 extension for Oracle DB, of course. The various MySQL extension are there and use the mysqlnd driver, so installation doesn't require any client-side MySQL libraries. Note the PHP 5.3.9 RPMs are for testing only. For production users I recommend Zend Server.

PHP OCI8 1.4.7 is available on PECL

cj — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:37:37 -0600

Following on the heels of the PHP 5.3.9 release, I've bundled OCI8 1.4.7 for PECL. The PECL OCI8 1.4.7 code is the same as included in PHP 5.3.9 and can be used to update older PHP installations. The release notes are here. There are several bug fixes; upgrading is recommended.

PHP oci_password_change() ORA-1017 gotcha with Oracle Database 11.2.0.3

cj — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:27:45 -0500

The Oracle Instant Client 11.2.0.3 for Linux is now available on OTN. I know many users will upgrade sooner rather than later to get the "latest and greatest" release.

However, if your PHP application uses oci_password_change (or its old alias ocipasswordchange), you should upgrade the client libraries (Instant or normal "full" client) and the Oracle Database version to 11.2.0.3 at the same time. Otherwise oci_password_change will fail with the error "ORA-1017: invalid username/password". If you're not using oci_password_change then this won't impact you.

Since the protocol change is in the Oracle libraries, the change is not just limited PHP. Any C program using Oracle's Call Interface "OCIPasswordChange" API to change passwords will also have the same restrictions.

Scripting Language Related Sessions at Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne, October 2011

cj — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:50:29 -0500

Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne conferences are happening in San Francisco next week. It will be a busy and exciting time.

First, here's a shout out: For me the conference kicks off on Sunday morning. Marcelle Kratochvil from Piction (heavy users of PHP and Oracle DB) is hosting the inaugural Unstructured Data with Multimedia SIG for Oracle Database and MySQL database (32440) Sunday 9:00 am in Moscone West room 2011.

Below are some of the scripting and related sessions happening during the week.

Exhibition Hall

During the Exhibition Hall hours, come and talk to us at the Database Access Services and APIs booth. This year we're in Moscone South, Left SL-067. The Tuxedo application server booth is Moscone South, Right - SR-202. At JavaOne look out for the NetBeans booth, Hilton San Francisco - HHJ-023.

Scripting Sessions, Birds-of-a-Feather Meetings, and Hands-on-Labs at OOW

The Oracle Tuxedo team has scripting language support in their powerful application server environment:
High-Performance Web Applications with C/C++/PHP/Python (15705)
Monday, 05:00 PM, Moscone South - 300
This year we are running introductory Hands-on Lab sessions for three languages concurrently. Come along and choose which language you'd like to dip your toes into:
Develop and Deploy High-Performance Web 2.0 PHP, Ruby, or Python Applications (30082)
Monday, 05:00 PM, Marriott Marquis - Salon 10/11
Come and ask questions at the round table Birds-of-a-Feather session:
Meet the Oracle Database Clients Developers: C, C++, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Perl (26240)
Monday, 07:30 PM, Marriott Marquis - Salon 8
My overview and state-of-the-nation session is:
PHP, Ruby, Python, and Perl: Develop and Deploy Mission-Critical Apps with Oracle Database 11g (14704)
Wednesday, 11:45 AM, Marriott Marquis - Salon 8
The Tuxedo team Hands-on-Lab lets you code in C/C++/PHP/Python/Ruby:
Develop High-Performance, Service-Oriented C/C++ Applications for Oracle Exalogic (31120)
Thursday, 12:00 PM, Marriott Marquis - Salon 3/4
Raimonds Simanovskis, maintainer of the Rails adapter for Oracle is giving a session:
Extending Oracle E-Business Suite with Ruby on Rails (8604)
Thursday, 03:00 PM, Moscone West - 2002/2004

Several other sessions discuss topics that scripting language devotees will find invaluable:

Build, Deploy, and Troubleshoot Highly Performant, Highly Available Apps with Oracle Database (14703)
Wednesday, 05:00 PM, Moscone South - 303
Net Services: Best Practices for Performance, Scalability, and High Availability (14345)
Wednesday, 01:15 PM, Moscone South - 303

Also check out the full Oracle Tuxedo application server schedule here.

Scripting at JavaOne

Over in the concurrent JavaOne conference there are several scripting sessions driven by San Francisco's EngineYard. This year they have JRuby sessions but with their recent aquisition of PHP technnology, I hope they'll have more on PHP in one of the OOW streams next year:

Accelerate Your Business and Aim for the Cloud with Java and JRuby (25284)
Wednesday, 03:00 PM, Parc 55 - Embarcadero
From Java to Rails: Techniques for Adding Ruby Agility to Your Java Web Stack (24582)
Monday, 05:30 PM, Parc 55 - Market Street
Real-World JRuby (23600)
Wednesday, 04:30 PM, Parc 55 - Market Street
Script Bowl 2011: A Scripting Languages Shootout (22060)
Wednesday, 08:30 AM, Hilton San Francisco - Grand Ballroom B

Also keep an eye out for the various NetBeans IDE sessions and demo booth.

Linux

Check out the four pages of Focus on Linux sessions and events.

MySQL

There is a veritable plethora of MySQL content - four pages of sessions and activites are listed in the Oracle Focus on MySQL. Don't forget the MySQL Community Reception Tuesday 7:00pm - 9:00pm in the Marriott Marquis - Foothill G.

Having started this post with a shout out, let me end with one to Bill Karwin, who was instrumental in getting PHP's Zend Framework off the ground. He is talking about MaatKit and SQL Injection.

Update: Ligaya Turmelle, well known in the PHP community, confirmed overnight that despite a recent job move she is still on track to present her MySQL Performance Tuning talk (16040).

You can search the OOW session catalog here and the JavaOne session catalog here.

Oracle Resources for PHP

cj — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:58:56 -0500

Here are some key resources for working with PHP and Oracle technologies.

Overall Links

Oracle : Oracle Technology Network (OTN)

Homepage : The PHP Developer Center -- downloads, how-tos, sample code and discussion forums brought to you by OTN.

Read : PHP Articles -- a collection of informative articles on OTN.

Technology : Download the newest versions of other software in Oracle's Technology Stack. Read about other Oracle application development tools.
PHP Oracle Database Extension : OCI8 is the most available and scalable PHP adapter for the Oracle database. It is included with PHP, and is also separately downloadable for upgrading older PHP releases. OCI8 works with PHP 4 and PHP 5, and will compile with Oracle 9iR2, 10g and 11g client libraries. Oracle's standard cross-version compatibility and connectivity is applicable, so OCI8 can connect to older or newer databases, locally or remotely. The latest OCI8 release includes support for Oracle Database 11g Database Resident Connection Pooling (DRCP), and for Fast Application Notification (FAN) [whitepaper here], and also has support for Oracle's authentication and end-to-end tracing meta data attributes [article here]. These features improve scalability and availabilty of the OCI8 extension.

The OCI8 extension can also be used with the Oracle In-Memory Database Cache.

Book : The Underground PHP & Oracle Manual -- the definitive, free guide to using PHP with Oracle Database.

Tutorial : Oracle & PHP tutorials -- step by step Oracle Learning Library tutorials for using PHP with Oracle. (Free OTN login required)

Read : PHP & High Scalability -- covers enabling DRCP and FAN for PHP applications.

Read : PHP Web Auditing, Authorization and Monitoring with Oracle Database -- learn how to audit individual web users, automatically apply rules to individual web users to restrict data access, and monitor and trace database usage per application user.

Forum : The Oracle & PHP forum -- technical discussion forum for using PHP with Oracle.

Blog : PHP and Oracle: Christopher Jones -- The latest news on PHP and Oracle.
Database : Oracle Express Edition Database -- an entry-level, small-footprint database based on the standard Oracle Database code base that's free to develop, deploy, and distribute; fast to download; and simple to administer.

PHP OCI8 works with Oracle Database XE the same way it works with the other editions of Oracle Database.

Oracle Database XE is a great starter database for:
- Developers working on PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, .Net and other open source applications.
- DBAs who need a free, starter database for training and deployment
- Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and hardware vendors who want a starter database to distribute free of charge
- Educational institutions and students who need a free database for their curriculum
Install Now!
Database : MySQL -- The world's most popular open source database. MySQL Community Edition is the freely downloadable version. Commercial customers have the flexibility of choosing from multiple editions to meet specific business and technical requirements. Also available for free is the MySQL Workbench for SQL Authoring, System Administration, and schema modeling.

Recent additions to MySQL include semi synchronous replication, direct memcached-to-InnoDB access, multi-threaded replication, and enhanced partitioning. See What's new in MySQL 5.6

PHP's mysqli or PDO_mysql extensions can be used to access MySQL.

Check out the new Query Cache plugin documented here and the Replication and Load-Balancing plugin for master-slave-splitting, documented [here].

Homepage : Using MySQL With PHP -- Articles and downloads

Forum : PHP and MySQL forum -- The place to ask questions

Blog : Planet MySQL -- The latest MySQL news from the community

Blog : Johannes Schlüter -- A member of the MySQL connector team and the current PHP Release Master.

Blog : Me Talking Out Loud -- Ligaya Turmelle, a member of MySQL Support. (and contributer to The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks)

Blog : Internet Super Hero -- Ulf Wendel, a member of the MySQL connector team.

Books : Many! Including PHP and MySQL Web Development and Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL and Learning PHP & MySQL: Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Database-Driven Web Sites

Install Now!
Database : Oracle Berkeley DB 11g -- provides the complex data management features found in enterprise class databases. These facilities include high throughput, low-latency reads, non-blocking writes, high concurrency, data scalability, in-memory caching, ACID transactions, automatic and catastrophic recovery when the application, system or hardware fails, high availability and replication in an application configurable package. Simply configure the library and use the particular features available to satisfy your particular application needs. Berkeley DB can be configured to address any application need from the hand-held device to the datacenter, from a local storage solution to a world-wide distributed one, from kilobytes to petabytes.

Berkeley DB's SQL API allows PHP's sqlite3 and PDO_sqlite extensions to be used.

Berkeley DB also includes source code for a php_db4 extension.

Install Now!
IDE : NetBeans -- lets you develop desktop, mobile and web applications using Java, PHP, C/C++ and more. Runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris. NetBeans IDE is open-source and free.

Understand: NetBeans PHP features -- All the great features that NetBeans has for PHP developers

Learn: NetBeans PHP Learning Trail -- the best way to learn how to use NetBeans

Install Now!
Virtualize : Oracle VM VirtualBox -- powerful Cross-platform Virtualization Software for x86-based systems. "Cross-platform" means that it installs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris x86 computers. And "Virtualization Software" means that you can create and run multiple Virtual Machines, running different operating systems, on the same computer at the same time. For example, you can run Windows and Linux on your Mac, run Linux and Solaris on your Windows PC, or run Windows on your Linux systems.

Oracle VM VirtualBox is available as Open Source or pre-built Binaries for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris.

OTN hosts some pre-built Developer VMs , including an Oracle Tuxedo Web Application Server VM showing PHP support. There is also a Zend Server VM for PHP created by Zend. Zend Server is a complete, Oracle-enabled, enterprise-ready Web Application Server for running and managing PHP applications that require a high level of reliability, performance and security. Zend Server is available in community and supported editions.

Install Now!
Operating system : Oracle Linux -- free to download and distribute. As one of the most widely deployed operating systems today, Linux is increasingly being adopted for cloud-based solutions. Oracle Linux is the most complete and integrated solution available and delivers higher performance and better reliability at up to 7 times lower cost than Red Hat. Why Choose Oracle Linux over Red Hat Linux?

Oracle Linux 5.6 and 6 introduced PHP 5.3 packages. Subscribers to the Unbreakable Linux Network have access to an additional pre-built PHP OCI8 RPM, and also direct access to an RPM for installing Zend Server .

Users of older Linux 5 releases can get PHP 5.3 RPMs from oss.oracle.com .

Install Now!
Application Server : Oracle Tuxedo -- provides a robust, grid enabled platform for developing enterprise applications. It provides mainframe-class scale and performance on open, distributed systems for software written in C, C++, COBOL, PHP, Python and Ruby. Oracle Tuxedo provides cost-effective reliability, extreme scalability and throughput of hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. Functionality like Web services, SCA programming model, metadata driven application development make it simple to develop and integrate applications written in many programming languages.

PHP applications can be hosted on the Tuxedo platform without requiring any code changes and can leverage high availability, scalability and integration capabilities.

The whitepaper Oracle Tuxedo - An Enterprise Platform for Dynamic Languages explains the architecture and features. A Tuxedo Demo VM for VirtualBox is available for immediate testing.

Install Now!
Client Libraries : Oracle Instant Client -- a small footprint set of libraries that allows applications and tools to connect to an existing Oracle Database. Oracle OCI, OCCI, Pro*C, ODBC, and JDBC applications work without modification.

The PHP OCI8 extension can be built with Oracle Instant Client to connect to a remote database.

Instant Client is provided under a separate OTN Development and Distribution License for Instant Client that allows most licensees to download, redistribute, and deploy in production environments, without charge.

Install Now!

Mid conference wrap up

cj — Tue, 24 May 2011 12:51:10 -0500

In a nicer section of the RAI conference center than in previous years I've attended, the Dutch PHP conference last week was as professionally organized as ever by ibuildings. The weather was kind too, having cleared up from a previous blustery days I'd spent south of Amsterdam with my parents.

My talk had a big audience, which stayed the course. Unfortunately my abstract was condensed down in the small printed name-tag/program-guide, which contributed to some polarized reviews. Some really liked the Oracle-PHP overview section, while others were not expecting it.

In a few minutes I'm heading off to Chicago for php|tek. My talk is based on the presentation I gave at DPC but I'll cut down the "state of the Oracle-PHP nation" section down by a couple of slides (taking it to about 8 minutes worth). I'll also rejig which advanced Oracle techniques are covered in the main part of the talk. My code snippets and screen captures didn't satisfy DPC audience's thirst for knowledge so I'm adding back (some) live demos - hey, why not live dangerously!?

Since I'm at the conference for the full three session days, there'll be plenty of time for you to pin me down with your questions. And if you have MySQL questions, Ligaya Turmelle is the person to talk to. Her tutorial is in session as I write. She's also talking about schema normalization on Wednesday afternoon.

At php|tek make sure you come along to the Uncon after hours on Wednesday and find all the latest and hot topics. Oracle is sponsoring it this year.

Oracle at the Dutch PHP Conference & php|tek

cj — Sat, 14 May 2011 11:15:08 -0500

I'm off to Amsterdam to talk at the Dutch PHP Conference. After that it's on to Chicago for php|tek.

See you there!

Oracle Tuxedo: A New way to Run PHP Applications

cj — Thu, 12 May 2011 16:08:57 -0500

The Oracle Tuxedo team have posted an Oracle Tuxedo 11.1.1.2 Web Application Server Demo for PHP. It is a VirtualBox VM so you can immediately test it out. The free VM is available from OTN's Pre-Built Developer VMs page.

Oracle Tuxedo provides a scalable and highly available mid tier platform capable of managing and integrating heterogeneous applications. This overview datasheet explains its capabilities: "Oracle Tuxedo provides a service-oriented infrastructure for efficiently routing, dispatching, and managing requests, events, and application queues across system processes and application services". A raft of other material is on the Tuxedo landing page. There is also a new white paper on PHP being reviewed at this very moment.

The VM uses Oracle Linux 5.6. It has PHP 5.3 and Oracle Tuxedo 11.1.1.2 installed and configured. The SALT and TSAM components of Tuxedo are also available.

Tuxedo's PHP support comes in the form of a new mod_tuxedo module for Apache 2.2 (or Oracle HTTP Server). This handles all PHP scripts, executing them using managed PHP processes. Existing applications can run normally:

Tuxedo also lets PHP be exposed as a web service:

The tutorial manual provided inside the VM steps through using PHP in both ways. The NetBeans IDE, Oracle Database XE and MySQL are included on the VM to make it easier to carry out your own further experiments with Tuxedo and PHP.

Tuxedo has been around for a long time and has an established customer base. If you look at Oracle Database's big TPC-C benchmark's you can see Tuxedo was involved. It's even certified on Exalogic. The new dynamic language support in Tuxedo is going to open up "Enterprise" infrastructure, making it easy to integrate modern solutions in a heterogeneous environment.

When I get back from the Dutch PHP and PHP|Tek conferences, which run back to back from next week, I plan to write up more details about using Tuxedo and PHP.

Update: a new whitepaper is available: Oracle Tuxedo: An Enterprise Platform for Dynamic Languages.

PHP 5.4 is Gathering Momentum

cj — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:36:24 -0500

Discussion on the PHP mail lists and IRC channels in the past few days has been looking positive about an alpha release of PHP 5.4 soon. This will be taken from the "trunk" branch of PHP. The exact feature list is under discussion but the mood seems to be "ship what we currently have" though a couple of features are slated to be deferred until later.

A paragraph from a post by Rasmus Lerdorf on PHP's "internals" mail list is worth re-broadcasting. Rasmus is more than willing to grant PHP karma to encourage contributions:

And if you can't figure out how to fix a test, post the details here. I'd love to point some of the obvious talents and energy of this list towards the code. If you don't have an svn account for committing your fixed test, go to http://www.php.net/svn-php.php and fill in the little form at the bottom there and put in the test that you fixed and a 1-liner about how you fixed it and I will set you up with an account right away. Info on how to check out the code from svn is here: https://wiki.php.net/vcs/svnfaq

So, you can easily become a contributor to PHP, which would look great on your resume.

If SVN seems daunting you can run PHP tests from the normal snapshots and release bundles too.

To discuss test issues you can subscribe to the PHP internals and QA mail lists at http://php.net/mailing-lists.php

Configuring PHP GD on Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty"

cj — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:52:27 -0500

This is a post for the "so I can find it again" category. (It is also a test for the new blogging infrastructure that Oracle migrated to last week).

After an upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 on one 32 bit machine, my simple custom script to build PHP 5.3 from source failed. The script isn't complex, pulling in a couple of extensions that I use for sanity checking the OCI8 extension. I use the GD extension to generate some simple graphs.

My configuration command was like:

./configure ... --with-gd --with-jpeg-dir --with-png-dir ...

which gave the error:

configure: error: libjpeg.(a|so) not found

This release of Ubuntu has moved around some standard libraries. After some fiddling around, checking the 'configure' options and the GD extension config.m4 file intention, the solution for me was simple. Add the --with-libdir=lib/i386-linux-gnu option to configure. I haven't tried this with other extensions so YMMV.

Update: Rasmus just merged a patch to gd that should make the --with-libdir option unnecessary

Malicious website use will never go away: how do you manage it?

cj — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:48:43 -0500

OTN has published two articles by Eli White that stem from his long experience with protecting high volume websites from unwanted and malicious use. Eli has worked on many large scale PHP projects including Digg, TripAdvisor, and for the Hubble space telescope program. I've seen Eli's conference presentation on preventing web site spam and on the deeper topic of website manipulation. I am really glad to see the material put in article format. The techniques Eli covers will always be applicable in one form or another. They should be a fundamental part of any website architect's bag of tricks.

The articles are:

Combating Spam for Healthier Websites

and

Preventing Nefarious Website Manipulation (Gaming a System)

These articles follow on from Eli's recent two part article on Scaling a PHP MySQL Web Application.

Oracle 11gR2 XE Beta is now available

cj — Fri, 1 Apr 2011 14:17:27 -0500

Oracle 11gR2 Express Edition ("XE") Beta is now downloadable for Linux x86_64 and Windows (32-Bit). Oracle XE is a free, slimmed down version of the full Oracle DB. Documentation for XE 11gR2 is here.

One of the Oracle features retained by XE 11gR2 is DRCP support. This is the first XE release with DRCP so now you can make the most of limited resources using PHP again a small footprint DB.

The big XE change for Linux users is that it is now 64-bit instead of 32-bit. With Linux production systems really rooted in a 64-bit world it makes sense for XE to head in that direction too.

Report any XE 11gR2 Beta issues at the dedicated OTN forum.

To compile PHP with XE 11gR2 Beta code, edit $ORACLE_HOME/lib/sysliblist and remove the references to the two libraries -lipgo -lsvml (Oracle bug 12318656). Before the Beta release I had picked up on another compilation gotcha but didn't spot this sysliblist issue. Dang. Luckily, that's what Beta programs are for!

Building PHP 5.3 with Oracle HTTP Server 11g

cj — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:13:24 -0500

This post has instructions for building PHP with Oracle HTTP Server 11g (OHS). It is based on the older note Using PHP with Oracle HTTP Server 11g.

I used an uncommon OS, but the instructions should be very similar for other systems. This post is in the "blogging it so I can find it again" category.

I recently had the so-called "pleasure" of building PHP on HP/UX Itanium. This is a platform that I'm very glad to see Oracle's announcement: Oracle Stops All Software Development For Intel Itanium Microprocessor

I get the impression that not a lot of people in the PHP community are using Itanium. There are enough warnings during PHP compilation that would make me extremely uncomfortable using it for production applications. A PHP on Itanium installation bug that I logged long ago has not been patched, indicating to me that not many PHP people are investing time in the platform. I can't recommend using Itanium platform for PHP.

Anyway, I had a need and here are the steps for posterity.

Steps to build PHP 5.3.5 with OHS 11g (with reference to HP/UX Itanium 64 bit)

1. Check OS & compiler

    $ uname -a
    HP-UX B.11.31 U ia64 2921109885 unlimited-user license

    $ cc --version
    cc: HP C/aC++ B3910B A.06.23 [May 18, 2009]

I saw various issues with the whole HP/UX build environment, including total compilation failure when using an older (different??) compiler than this.

2a. Set the Oracle environment. The Oracle home contains an instance of OHS.

     export ORACLE_HOME=/path/to/your/oracle-home
     export ORACLE_INSTANCE=$ORACLE_HOME/instances/instance1

     export CONFIG_FILE_PATH=$ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OHS/ohs1
     export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:$ORACLE_HOME/ohs/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

2b. Set the PHP compiler environment.

     export CFLAGS='+O2 +DD64'
     export CC=/bin/cc

You'll need to check and experiement with the best compiler options. On Itanium +DD64 is needed to create a 64bit binary usable with OHS.

3. Download and extract the Oracle InstantClient 11.1.0.7.0 SDK ZIP file from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/features/instant-client/index-097480.html e.g.: http://download.oracle.com/otn/hp/instantclient/111070/sdk-11.1.0.7.0-hpux-ia64.zip

     unzip sdk-11.1.0.7.0-hpux-ia64.zip

4. Copy the new header files

     cp instantclient_11_1/sdk/include/*.h $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/demo

5. Extract the php-5.3.5 bundle to a working directory:

     gunzip php-5.3.5.tar.gz
     tar -xf php-5.3.5.tar

6. Change to the extracted PHP directory:

     cd php-5.3.5

7. Edit PHP's 'configure' and change 'sl' to 'so' in the 'hpux' case at about line 3720: (This is the Itanium specific part of the patch in PHP PECL Bug 15016)

     case $host_alias in
     *hpux*)
       SHLIB_SUFFIX_NAME=so
       SHLIB_DL_SUFFIX_NAME=so
       ;;

8. If using PHP 5.3.6 or earlier, edit PHP's 'configure' script and change both occurrences of:

      APACHE_VERSION=`expr $4 \* 1000000 + $5 \* 1000 + $6`

to:

      APACHE_VERSION=`expr $6 \* 1000000 + $7 \* 1000 + $8`

This step is missing from the OHS 11g PHP installation instructions. It is needed because OHS's Apache reports its error number differently. See PHP bug 54084, which I just fixed in the 5.3 and trunk branches of the PHP source code.

9. Clean up if you are repeating the steps and re-running 'configure' with different options:

      make distclean
      rm -rf config.cache autom4te.cache

10. Configure & build PHP with whatever options:

      ./configure --disable-all --with-apxs2=$ORACLE_HOME/ohs/bin/apxs \
                  --with-oci8=$ORACLE_HOME --disable-rpath \
                  --prefix=$ORACLE_HOME --with-config-file-path=$CONFIG_FILE_PATH
      make

This produces a bunch of compiler warnings that would make me very uncomfortable to have running in production.

Notice I used --disable-all. The system libraries are a little different on Itanium and I didn't have access to libraries such as libxml2. Perhaps by working out the installation steps or by building third-party software bundles you could get the dependencies for other PHP extensions.

11. Copy a default php.ini file:

      cp php.ini-devlopment $CONFIG_FILE_PATH/php.ini

      cp php.ini-production $CONFIG_FILE_PATH/php.ini

12. Edit $CONFIG_FILE_PATH/php.ini and add a timezone line (this is mandatory for PHP 5.3):

      date.timezone=America/Los_Angeles

13. Edit $CONFIG_FILE_PATH/php.ini and add 'E' to 'variables_order' so PHP's run-tests.php passes the Oracle environment correctly when running tests:

      variables_order = "EGPCS"

This can be removed later.

14. Modify run-tests.php and change 60 to 600. This prevents long Oracle tests from timing out.

15. Edit ext/oci8/tests/details.inc and set the SYSTEM password and connection string to your Oracle DB.

16. Set the PHP environment so PHP tests don't try to email results to the world:

      export NO_INTERACTION=no

17. Test the PHP command-line binary:

      make test

The OCI8 tests can be run with:

      make test TESTS=ext/oci8

18. Investigate failed tests. Also compare the results with 64 bit Linux results. A significant number of tests do pass on Itanium, which gives some hope that much of the PHP code base works, even if it is delicate and likely to be prone to memory corruption issues.

19. If all is OK, install the PHP binaries:

      make install

20. Edit $CONFIG_FILE_PATH/httpd.conf and add a line:

     AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

21. Restart OHS:

     cd $ORACLE_INSTANCE/bin
     ./opmnctl start
     ./opmnctl stopproc ias-component=ohs1
     ./opmnctl startproc ias-component=ohs1

22. Create a phpinfo file:

      echo '<?php phpinfo(); ?>' > $ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OHS/ohs1/htdocs/phpinfo.php

23. Check phpinfo on the port OHS is configured for. In my case it was port 7777:

      http://localhost:7777/phpinfo.php

24. Create and run some OCI8 scripts in $ORACLE_INSTANCE/config/OHS/ohs1/htdocs at your leisure.

To repeat my earlier warning, I don't recommend using PHP on Itanium.

Netretail's online retail operation benefits from personal contact

cj — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:11:56 -0500

Hot on oracle.com is a snapshot of Netretail Holding B.V. profiling their use of PHP and Oracle technology such as Oracle RAC cluster database to become a leading online retailer across Central and Eastern Europe.

We've also just refreshed our key PHP Scalability and High Availability whitepaper which talks about connection pooling (DRCP) and Fast Application Notification (FAN). We brought it up to date for 11gR2 and PHP 5.3. It now includes the new 11gR2 V$CPOOL_CONN_INFO view, the new columns for DBA_CPOOL_INFO, information about LOGOFF triggers, and information about the support for Client Result Caching with DRCP.

Back to Netretail. Two of their secrets to success are keeping technically up to date, and networking. That is, networking in the business sense. I had the pleasure of meeting Michal Táborský (@whizz), the Chief System Architect, when he was in California for a Velocity conference. Michal took time to visit Oracle HQ and talk with our developers about his then current architecture and future needs. I also met his manager at last year's Oracle OpenWorld conference.

Having built up a relationship with us, Netretail now has access to Oracle Development staff. While this will never bypass Oracle Support (which have tools, systems etc that are needed and useful for resolving issues), it makes communication easier for some classes of questions. It helps discussions that will let us improve Oracle products, and make Netretail stronger.

I like this. And there's no reason why you can't talk with us too. You know where to email me.

More on PHP and Oracle 11gR2 Improvements to Client Result Caching

cj — Thu, 3 Mar 2011 12:36:33 -0600

Oracle 11.2 brought several improvements to Client Result Caching. CRC is way for the results of queries to be cached in the database client process for reuse. In an Oracle OpenWorld presentation "Best Practices for Developing Performant Application" my colleague Luxi Chidambaran had a (non-PHP generated) graph for the Nile benchmark that shows a DB CPU reduction up to 600% and response times up to 22% faster when using CRC.

Sometimes CRC is called the "Consistent Client Cache" because Oracle automatically invalidates the cache if table data is changed. This makes it easy to use without needing application logic rewrites. There are a few simple database settings to turn on and tune CRC, so management is also easy.

PHP OCI8 as a "client" of the database can use CRC. The cache is per-process, so plan carefully before caching large data sets. Tables that are candidates for caching are look-up tables where the network transfer cost dominates.

CRC is really easy in 11.2 - I'll get to that in a moment. It was also pretty easy in Oracle 11.1 but it needed some tiny application changes. In PHP it was used like:

$s = oci_parse($c, "select /*+ result_cache */ * from employees");
oci_execute($s, OCI_NO_AUTO_COMMIT); // Use OCI_DEFAULT in OCI8 <= 1.3
oci_fetch_all($s, $res);

I blogged about this in the past. The query had to include a specific hint that you wanted the results cached, and you needed to turn off auto committing during execution either with the OCI_DEFAULT flag or its new, better-named alias OCI_NO_AUTO_COMMIT. The no-commit flag rule didn't seem reasonable to me because most people wouldn't be specific about the commit state for a query.

Now in Oracle 11.2, DBAs can now nominate tables for caching, either with CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE. That means you don't need the query hint anymore. As well, the no-commit flag requirement has been lifted. Your code can now look like:

$s = oci_parse($c, "select * from employees");
oci_execute($s);
oci_fetch_all($s, $res);

Since your code probably already looks like this, your DBA can find the top queries in the database and simply tune the system by turning on CRC in the database and issuing an ALTER TABLE statement for candidate tables. Voila.

Another CRC improvement in Oracle 11.2 is that it works with DRCP connection pooling.

There is some fine print about what is and isn't cached, check the Oracle manuals for details. If you're using 11.1 or non-DRCP "dedicated servers" then make sure you use oci_pconnect() persistent connections. Also in PHP don't bind strings in the query, although binding as SQLT_INT is OK.

Profiling NetBeans 7.0 Beta 2 and Reporting Problems

cj — Tue, 1 Mar 2011 13:12:10 -0600

With NetBeans 7.0 recently going into Beta 2 phase, now is the time to test it out properly and report issues. The development team has been squashing bugs, including memory issues with the PHP bundle.

There are some great new PHP related features in NetBeans 7.0, so you know you want to try it out.

If you identify something wrong with NetBeans, please report it following the guidelines http://wiki.netbeans.org/IssueReportingGuidelines

Depending on the issues, data to attach to the report is mentioned on: http://wiki.netbeans.org/FaqLogMessagesFile and http://wiki.netbeans.org/FaqProfileMeNow

If you have a memory issue then a memory dump would also be useful. Run the jmap tool for this. There is some background information on http://wiki.netbeans.org/FaqMemoryDump. Here's how I used it.

First I set my environment to match the JDK used by NetBeans. In my case I am using a nightly build so the JDK is in the configuration file under $HOME/netbeans-dev-201102210501:

$ egrep netbeans_jdkhome $HOME/netbeans-dev-201102210501/etc/netbeans.conf

netbeans_jdkhome="/home/cjones/src/jdk1.6.0_24"

$ export JAVA_HOME=/home/cjones/src/jdk1.6.0_24

$ export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

Next, I found the correct process number to examine:

$ ps -ef | egrep 'netbeans|jdk'
cjones 23230 1 0 16:07 ? 00:00:00 /bin/bash /home/cjones/netbeans-
cjones 23438 23230 2 16:07 ? 00:00:09 /home/cjones/src/jdk1.6.0_24/bin

Finally I used the parent JDK process as the jmap argument:

$ jmap -histo:live 23438
num     #instances         #bytes class name
----------------------------------------------
   1:         12075        9028656 [I
   2:         49535        6581920 <constmethodklass>
   3:         49535        3964128 <methodklass>
   4:         80256        3840776 <symbolklass>
   5:         36093        3635336 [C
   6:          5095        3341312 <constantpoolklass>
   7:          5095        2486016 <instanceklassklass>
   8:          4325        1961432 <constantpoolcacheklass>
   9:         18729        1763976 [B
10:         59952        1438848 java.util.HashMap$Entry
. . .

This histogram memory report will help identify the kind of memory issues you are seeing. It may not be as complete as an often tens of megabyte jmap -dump:live,file=/tmp/nbheap.log 23438 heap dump, but is much more easily attached to a bug report.

If you want to keep up to date with NetBeans, nightly builds are at: http://bits.netbeans.org/download/trunk/nightly/latest/zip/

PHP OCI8 and Oracle 11g DRCP Connection Pooling in Pictures

cj — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:32:28 -0600

Here is a screen shot from a PHP OCI8 connection pooling demo that I like to run. It graphically shows how little database host memory is needed when using DRCP connection pooling with Oracle Database 11g.

Migrating to DRCP can be as simple as starting the pool and changing the connection string in your PHP application.

The script that generated the data for this graph was a simple "Parts" query application being run under various simulated user loads. I was running the database on a small Oracle Linux server with just 2G of memory. I used PHP OCI8 1.4. Apache is in pre-fork mode, as needed for PHP.

Each graph has time on the horizontal access in arbitrary 'tick' time units.

Click the image to see it full sized.

Pooled connections

Beginning with the top left graph, At tick time 65 I used Apache's 'ab' tool to start 100 concurrent 'users' running the application. These users connected to the database using DRCP:

    $c = oci_pconnect('phpdemo', 'welcome', 'myhost/orcl:pooled');

A second hundred DRCP users were added to the system at tick 80 and a final hundred users added at tick 100. At about tick 110 I stopped the test and restarted Apache. This closed all the connections.

The bottom left graph shows the number of statements being executed by the database per second, with some spikes for background database activity and some variability for this small test. Each extra batch of users adds another 'step' of load to the system.

Looking at the top right Server Process graph shows the database server processes doing the query work for each web user. As user load is added, the DRCP server pool increases (in green). The pool is initially at its default size 4 and quickly ramps up to about (I'm guessing) 35. At tick time 100 the pool increases to my configured maximum of 40 processes. Those 40 processes are doing the query work for all 300 web users. When I stopped the test at tick 110, the pooled processes remained open waiting for more users to connect. If I had left the test quiet for the DRCP 'inactivity_timeout' period (300 seconds by default), the pool would have shrunk back to 4 processes.

Looking at the bottom right, you can see the amount of memory being consumed by the database. During the initial quiet period about 500M of memory was in use. The absolute number is just an indication of my particular DB configuration. As the number of pooled processes increases, each process needs more memory. You can see the shape of the memory graph echoes the Server Process graph above it. Each of the 300 web users will also need a few kilobytes but this is almost too small to see on the graph.

Non-pooled connections

Compare the DRCP case with using 'dedicated server' processes.

At tick 140 I started 100 web users who did not use pooled connections:

    $c = oci_pconnect('phpdemo', 'welcome', 'myhost/orcl');

This connection string change is the only difference between the two tests.

At ticks 155 and 165 I started two more batches of 100 simulated users each. At about tick 195 I stopped the user load but left Apache running. Apache then gradually returned to its quiescent state, killing idle httpd processes and producing the downward slope at the right of the graphs as the persistent database connection in each Apache process was closed.

The Executions per Second graph on the bottom left shows the same step increases as for the earlier DRCP case. The database is handling this load.

But look at the number of Server processes on the top right graph. There is now a one-to-one correspondence between Apache/PHP processes and DB server processes. Each PHP processes has one DB server processes dedicated to it. Hence the term 'dedicated server'.

The memory required on the database is proportional to all those database server processes started. Almost all my system's memory was consumed. I doubt it would have coped with any more user load.

Summary

Oracle Database 11g DRCP connection pooling significantly reduces database host memory requirements allow more system memory to be allocated for the SGA and allowing the system to scale to handled thousands of concurrent PHP users.

Even for small systems, using DRCP allows more web users to be active.

More information about PHP and DRCP can be found in the PHP Scalability and High Availability chapter of The Underground PHP and Oracle Manual. Update: the whitepaper that the chapter was based on shows a benchmark where we supported 20,000 users on a database using commodity hardware with 2G memory.

Learn to use PHP and Python with Oracle Database

cj — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:25:38 -0600

The Oracle Learning Library has posted up the latest "Oracle By Example" labs giving an introduction to PHP & Python with the Oracle Database :

Using PHP with Oracle Database 11g - a basic introduction
Developing a PHP Web Application with Oracle Database 11g - a Zend Framework application using the NetBeans IDE
Using Python With Oracle Database 11g - a basic introduction
Using the Django Framework with Python and Oracle Database 11g - a basic web application

PHP OCI8 1.4.5 is on PECL

cj — Thu, 9 Dec 2010 20:37:59 -0600

I just released OCI8 1.4.5 on PECL. It is the same code base included in PHP 5.3.4. It can be used to upgrade OCI8 on older PHP releases. OCI8 1.4.5 has one change since OCI8 1.4.4 made as part of PHP-wide security fix to disallow null bytes in filenames.

PHP Brasil 2010 starts on the 25th November

cj — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:57:22 -0600

I'm really looking forward to attending PHP Brasil 2010 next week and presenting on PHP and Oracle.

I was in Brazil for the conference two years ago. I felt it was very worthwhile and I enjoyed the conference a lot. If you're in the area and want to discuss your use of PHP and Oracle DB we can sit down and talk. Or we can set up a private meeting; my email is christopher.jones @ oracle.com.

I will have some PHP ElePHPants to give away...

PECL OCI8 1.4.4 is Available

cj — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:29:05 -0600

PECL OCI8 1.4.4 has just been released. It fixes a potential memory corruption using oci_set_* functions seen on 64 bit machines. This release can be used to update OCI8 on earlier PHP versions.

During testing, command line PHP worked fine but in browser I immediately got the infamous error:

    Warning: oci_connect() [function.oci-connect]: OCIEnvNlsCreate()
    failed. There is something wrong with your system - please check
    that LD_LIBRARY_PATH includes the directory with Oracle Instant
    Client libraries in /home/cjones/public_html/ed.php on line 2

I thought I'd seen all causes of this error before. It means the web server doesn't have the Oracle environment set correctly. Commonly it happens on Windows machines with multiple versions of Oracle installed.

Since I had a reproducible test, I took the time to enhance OCI8 1.4.4 to display the underlying error message. Several people had been asking for this:

    Warning: oci_connect() [function.oci-connect]: OCIEnvNlsCreate()
    failed. There is something wrong with your system - please check
    that LD_LIBRARY_PATH includes the directory with Oracle Instant
    Client libraries in /home/cjones/public_html/ed.php on line 2

    Warning: oci_connect() [function.oci-connect]: Error while trying
    to retrieve text for error ORA-01804 in
    /home/cjones/public_html/ed.php on line 2 exiting

My web server environment was so screwed that Oracle couldn't even locate the message files to print ORA-01804: failure to initialize timezone information, which was the failing part of initialization. Sadly the new message wasn't much help in resolving my situation. I eventually tracked down the cause to httpd.conf having:

LoadModule php5_module        modules/libphp5.so
LoadModule php6_module        modules/libphp6.so

It's not valid to load multiple versions of PHP like this but Apache was starting without logging an error. My left-over PHP 6 library statically linked OCI8 and an ORACLE_HOME. My PHP 5 loaded OCI8 via extension=oci8.so and this was built with an Instant Client. The end result was an Oracle library clash.

The solution was to remove the LoadModule line for PHP6. You are unlikely to hit this exact problem, but it is a lesson in how the environment needs to be valid. Oracle messages can't always pinpoint set up issues. Care and methodical elimination of causes is needed to resolve similar problems.

Oracle Database and Instant Client 11.2.0.2 are available on Linux

cj — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 20:42:38 -0500

The Oracle 11.2.0.2 Instant Client libraries are now available on Linux x86 and x86_64 platforms from the Instant Client home page. And they'll soon be uploaded on ULN for customers with Oracle Linux support to install via the update server.

If you are one of the (not so?) few users of command line PHP then you might want to grab the new client because it has Oracle bug 9891199 fixed. You'll also need OCI8 1.4.3 from PECL. This combination together resolve a process shutdown delay that irked some command line users. You will still be able to connect back to older versions of the DB, as is normal in the Oracle world.

The 11.2.0.2 patchset for the Oracle Database itself is available in Patch 10098816 from Oracle Support. Note ID 1189783.1 points out that this is a full database release and does not need to be applied on top of Oracle 11.2.0.1. According to the note this is the new patching strategy going forward.

PHP Web Database Auditing, Authorization and Monitoring

cj — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 14:10:51 -0500

Oracle Database "client identifiers" are cool because they let Oracle Database trace and monitor DB resource usage for individual web users, not just for the username that connected to the DB. You know how your web app files all connect using the same DB username like $c = oci_connect('phpuser', 'secret', 'mydb'), and so as a consequence how all your DB monitoring scripts show PHPUSER as the main (or only) resource consumer? Well by adding a simple oci_set_client_identifier($c, 'chris') call to your PHP files you can get a DB audit trail of the operations that 'chris' does, and can do real-time monitoring of the statements executed and see what his DB personal resource usage is. This can be used to track data access and highlight suspicious activity. It can identify heavy consumers or pinpoint the cause of a runaway situation. It could also be used during development to isolate the impact of a particular set of code changes from the load that other developers are putting on the dev database.

Client identifiers can also be used to automatically restrict data access. How? You create a PL/SQL function that simply returns the text string of WHERE clause and tell Oracle to automatically apply that clause whenever a particular table is accessed. The function logic and/or returned string can reference the client id. Just like a normal WHERE clause, if the clause returns true for a particular row, then the user sees that data, otherwise not. The application doesn't need any changes or recoding - the clause is automatically and consistently applied by Oracle.

There is a lot more detail on the topic in a brand new OTN article at PHP Web Auditing, Authorization and Monitoring with Oracle Database.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed and gave technical input to the article. It is much better as a result.

Zend Framework .htacess and Multiple Controllers

cj — Fri, 3 Sep 2010 14:23:14 -0500

Here is a Zend Framework configuration tip that took me too long to work out. I know other people have commented on it before me but often installation instructions don't mention the error or associate it with the required fix. I'm filing this under the "posting it so I can find it when I need it again" category.

I tend to do all my PHP work in $HOME/public_html and configure all my various Apache versions similar to:

UserDir public_html
<Directory "/home/*/public_html">
 . . . 
</Directory>

This way it doesn't matter what Apache I start (or destroy). All my working PHP files remain accessible.

I've been using NetBeans with Frameworks recently. I had no problem when doing a single controller example in Zend Framework, so I knew everything was installed OK and mod_rewrite was "working" fine. But I would click a URL that should be routed to a second controller and see an error like:

The requested URL /home/cjones/public_html/MyProject/public/index.php
was not found on this server.

The solution is to update the .htaccess file. In the Netbeans Projects pane navigate to Source Files > public > .htaccess or on disk edit /home/cjones/public_html/MyProject/public/.htacces and insert a new RewriteBase line so it reads:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /~cjones/MyProject/public
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]

PHP OCI8 1.4.3 is Available on PECL

cj — Mon, 9 Aug 2010 16:03:15 -0500

I've just posted the PHP OCI8 1.4.2 and OCI8 1.4.3 extensions on PECL. The change notes are here. PHP OCI8 is the recommended database driver for using Oracle Database in the PHP scripting language.

Why the two releases so close in time? The OCI8 extension is one of the few extensions that has a dual identity, being in both the PHP bundle and in the PECL repository. OCI8 1.4.2 contains the same code as in the recent PHP 5.3.3 release. The PECL bundle was made for anyone who wants a PHP 5.5.3-identical version of OCI8 when installing via PECL.

PECL OCI8 1.4.3 has one extra fix (bug #51610) that came too late in the PHP 5.3.3 release cycle and was deferred. It has now been merged to PHP's source code system and will also be in a subsequent PHP distribution e.g. PHP 5.3.4 or later. The bug impacts Oracle users who run PHP OCI8 1.3+ using Oracle 10.2.0.4+ client libraries and who use PHP as a command line scripting language. It causes a time delay at PHP process termination. Sites invoking PHP via a web server are unlikely to have noticed any issue. The "problem" had existed for several years but suddenly became "hot" - perhaps when users started to upgrade to PHP 5.3 which was the first full PHP release to include the affected code. I was surprised how many people are using PHP for command line processing. The OCI8 fix requires an Oracle client library patch for Oracle bug 9891199 before it will have an effect on PHP. There are several alternative PHP fixes postulated in bug #51610 that don't require an Oracle library patch, but they have limitations (no DRCP support; potential memory leak in far edge cases) and haven't been tested.

The OCI8 extension can be installed on PHP 4.3.9 onwards. The PHP community would strongly suggest that anyone still using PHP 4 should upgrade to PHP 5 for overall stability and security reasons. PHP 5.2 or PHP 5.3 are preferred.

It's Time to Upgrade to Zend Server

cj — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:50:50 -0500

If you haven't upgraded already, our partners Zend have announced the immediate end of life for their older Zend Core and Zend Platform products. The replacement is Zend Server which includes support for Oracle and MySQL databases and has been available for over a year.

Also announced today, Zend have a new cluster manager for Zend Server.

And if you're looking for more marketing collateral, see Zend's Zend and Oracle Datasheet.

Update Aug 2010: Updated the ZS URL to point to upgraded OTN site.