CentOS and PHP 5.4

I finally got around to PHP 5.4

Alas this meant reinstalling certain things, like ImageMagick and APC.

This also brought up the question of pagespeed, which I keep toying with. I use it at work, but since this server’s on CentOS with EasyApache, there’s no ‘easy’ way to install PageSpeed yet (not even a yum install will work), so it’s all manual work plus fiddling. I don’t mind installing ImageMagick and APC, but Google’s own ‘install from source’ aren’t really optimized for CentOS, even though they say they are, and I’m nervous about the matter. Well… I did it anyway. It’s at the bottom.

The only reason I had to do this all over is that I moved to a new major version of PHP. If I’d stayed on 5.3 and up’d to 5.3.21, that wouldn’t have mattered. But this changed a lot of things, and thus, a reinstall.

ImageMagick

I started using ImageMagick shortly after starting with DreamHost, since my co-worker Shredder was working on the ‘Have WP support ImageMagick’ project. It was weird, since I remembered using it before, and then everyone moved to GD. I used to run a photo gallery with Gallery2, and it had a way to point your install to ImageMagick. Naturally I assumed I still had it on my server, since I used to (in 2008). Well since 2008, I’ve moved servers. Twice. And now it’s no longer default.

Well. Let’s do one of the weirder installs.

First you install these to get your dependancies:

yum install ImageMagick
yum install ImageMagick-devel

Then you remove them, because nine times out of ten, the yum packages are old:

yum remove ImageMagick
yum remove ImageMagick-devel

This also cleans out any old copies you may have, so it’s okay.

Now we install ImageMagick latest and greatest from ImageMagick:

cd ~/tmp/
wget http://imagemagick.mirrorcatalogs.com/ImageMagick-6.8.1-10.tar.gz
tar zxf ImageMagick-6.8.1-10.tar.gz
cd ImageMagick-6.8.1-10
./configure --with-perl=/usr/bin/perl
make
make install

Next we install the -devel again, but this time we tell it where from:

rpm -i --nodeps http://www.imagemagick.org/download/linux/CentOS/x86_64/ImageMagick-devel-6.8.1-10.x86_64.rpm

Finally we can install the PHP stuff. Since I’m on PHP 5.4, I have to use imagick-3.1.0RC2 – Normally I’m not up for RCs on my live server, but this is a case where if I want PHP 5.4, I have to. By the way, next time you complain that your webhost is behind on PHP, this is probably why. If they told you ‘To get PHP 5.4, I have to install Release Candidate products, so your website will run on stuff that’s still being tested,’ a lot of you would rethink the prospect.

cd ~/tmp/
wget http://pecl.php.net/get/imagick-3.1.0RC2.tgz
tar zxf imagick-3.1.0RC2.tgz
cd imagick-3.1.0RC2
phpize
./configure
make
make install

Next, edit your php.ini to add this:

extension=imagick.so

Restart httpd (service httpd restart) and make sure PHP is okay (php -v), and you should be done! I had to totally uninstall and start over to make it work, since I wasn’t starting from clean.

Speaking of clean, cleanup is:

yum remove ImageMagick-devel
rm -rf ~/tmp/ImageMagick-6.8.1-10*
rm -rf ~/tmp/imagick-3.1.0RC2*

APC

I love APC. I can use it for so many things, and I’m just more comfortable with it than xcache. Part of it stems from a feeling that if PHP built it, it’s more likely to work. Also it’s friendly with my brand of PHP, and after 15 years, I’m uninclined to change. I like DSO, even if it makes WP a bit odd.

Get the latest version and install:

cd ~/tmp/
wget http://pecl.php.net/get/APC-3.1.14.tgz
tar -xzf APC-3.1.14.tgz
cd APC-3.1.14
phpize
./configure
make
make install

Add this to your php.ini:

extension = "apc.so"

Restart httpd again, clean up that folder, and then one more…

mod_pagespeed

I hate Google. Well, no I don’t, but I don’t trust them any more than I do Microsoft, and it’s really nothing personal, but I have issues with them. Now, I use PageSpeed at work, so I’m more comfortable than I was, and first I tried Google’s installer. The RPM won’t work, so I tried to install from source, but it got shirty with me, fast, and I thought “Why isn’t this as easy as the other two were!?” I mean, APC was stupid easy, and even easier than that would be yum install pagespeed right?

Thankfully for my sanity, someone else did already figure this out for me, Jordan Cooks, and I’m reproducing his Installing mod_pagespeed on a cPanel/WHM server notes for myself.(By the way, I keep a copy of this article saved to DropBox since invariably I will half-ass this and break my site.) Prerequisite was to have mod_deflate, which I do.

The commands are crazy simple:

cd /usr/local/src
mkdir mod_pagespeed
cd mod_pagespeed
wget https://dl-ssl.google.com/dl/linux/direct/mod-pagespeed-beta_current_x86_64.rpm
rpm2cpio mod-pagespeed-beta_current_x86_64.rpm | cpio -idmv
cp usr/lib64/httpd/modules/mod_pagespeed.so /usr/local/apache/modules/
chmod 755 /usr/local/apache/modules/mod_pagespeed.so
mkdir -p /var/mod_pagespeed/cache
chown nobody:nobody /var/mod_pagespeed/*

Once you do this, you have to edit the file, and this is where I differ from Jordan’s direction. He just copied this over /usr/local/apache/conf/pagespeed.conf but I had an older version from a ‘Let’s try Google’s way….’ attempt and someone else’s directions, so I made a backup and then took out the ModPagespeedGeneratedFilePrefix line since I know that’s deprecated. I also added in a line to tell it to ignore wp-admin.

Here’s my pagespeed.conf (edited):

LoadModule pagespeed_module modules/mod_pagespeed.so

	# Only attempt to load mod_deflate if it hasn't been loaded already.
<IfModule !mod_deflate.c>
	LoadModule deflate_module modules/mod_deflate.so
</IfModule>

<IfModule pagespeed_module>
	ModPagespeed on

	AddOutputFilterByType MOD_PAGESPEED_OUTPUT_FILTER text/html

	ModPagespeedFileCachePath "/var/mod_pagespeed/cache/"

    ModPagespeedEnableFilters rewrite_javascript,rewrite_css
    ModPagespeedEnableFilters collapse_whitespace,elide_attributes
    ModPagespeedEnableFilters rewrite_images
    ModPagespeedEnableFilters remove_comments

	ModPagespeedFileCacheSizeKb 102400
	ModPagespeedFileCacheCleanIntervalMs 3600000
	
	# Bound the number of images that can be rewritten at any one time; this
	# avoids overloading the CPU. Set this to 0 to remove the bound.
	#
	# ModPagespeedImageMaxRewritesAtOnce 8

	<Location /mod_pagespeed_beacon>
		SetHandler mod_pagespeed_beacon
	</Location>

	<Location /mod_pagespeed_statistics>
		Order allow,deny
		# You may insert other "Allow from" lines to add hosts you want to
		# allow to look at generated statistics. Another possibility is
		# to comment out the "Order" and "Allow" options from the config
		# file, to allow any client that can reach your server to examine
		# statistics. This might be appropriate in an experimental setup or
		# if the Apache server is protected by a reverse proxy that will
		# filter URLs in some fashion.
		Allow from localhost
		Allow from 127.0.0.1
		SetHandler mod_pagespeed_statistics
	</Location>

	ModPagespeedMessageBufferSize 100000	
	ModPagespeedDisallow */wp-admin/*
	ModPagespeedXHeaderValue "Powered By mod_pagespeed"

	<Location /mod_pagespeed_message>
		Allow from localhost
		Allow from 127.0.0.1
		SetHandler mod_pagespeed_message
	</Location>
	<Location /mod_pagespeed_referer_statistics>
		Allow from localhost
		Allow from 127.0.0.1
		SetHandler mod_pagespeed_referer_statistics
	</Location>
</IfModule>

To tell Apache to run this, edit /usr/local/apache/conf/includes/pre_main_global.conf and add:

Include conf/pagespeed.conf

Note: We put this code here because EasyApache and httpd.conf will eat your changes.

Finally you rebuild Apache config and restart apache and test your headers to see goodness! My test was a success.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 03:12:13 GMT
Server: Apache
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.4.10
Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=f4bcdae48a1e5d5c5e8868cfef35593a; path=/
Cache-Control: max-age=0, no-cache
Pragma: no-cache
X-Pingback: https://ipstenu.org/xmlrpc.php
X-Mod-Pagespeed: Powered By mod_pagespeed
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Length: 30864
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

For those wondering why I’m ignoring wp-admin, well … sometimes, on some servers, in some setups, if you don’t do this, you can’t use the new media uploader. It appears that PageSpeed is compressing the already compressed JS files, and changing their names, which makes things go stupid. By adding in the following, I can avoid that:

	ModPagespeedDisallow */wp-admin/*

Besides, why do I need to cache admin things anyway, I ask you?

So there you are! Welcome to PHP 5.4!

Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

I’m Mika (aka Ipstenu) and I’m complicated. I’ve been on the net since the days of dedicated terminals and Novation CAT modems and solved Missionaries and Cannibals (or Goats and Cabbages) before I was six, and blog about WordPress and technical/computer things at Half Elf on Tech.

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