[csw-announce] New PHP 4.4.0 packages

[Mark Round]

New PHP 4.4.0 packages are now available from the mirror sites. There
are a number of changes with these packages over previous 4.3.x
packages - please make sure you read the following to find out how
this move will affect your installation.

1. Changes in packaging

1.1 Modular extensions

The PHP packages now include a very minimal "core". Many extensions
are now built as shared libraries and have been split off into their
own packages. The reasoning behind this is that a user can just grab
what they need, instead of a huge monolithic build of PHP that eats up
memory with things that they very probably don't need - not to mention
saving space and time by not downloading all the various dependencies
that go with it.

Under this new system, if you just want PHP with, say MySQL and
OpenSSL support, you would install the core PHP package (and
optionally, the mod_php Apache extension) then php4_mysql and
php4_openssl.


1.2 Multiple SAPIs, Apache 2 support, standalone CGI package

As a user may just want the CLI or CGI executables, these are now
shipped in the core php4_cgi package, which all other PHP4 packages
now depend on. This includes the binaries, PEAR libraries, and various
headers. It also takes care of installing a php.ini, if none exists.
This is also the package you'd use if you wanted to set up a FastCGI
environment.

If you actually want mod_php for either Apache 1.3.x or 2.0.x, you'd
install mod_php4_core (CSWmodphp4).

This includes a dependency on php4_cgi, so if you install this, you'll
also get  the PEAR libraries and "foundations" needed for PHP to
function etc. It now includes an Apache 2 module shipped alongside the
standard Apache 1.  These have both been relocated to
/opt/csw/lib/php/sapi. The postinstall script will check for the
presence of CSWapache or CSWapache2, and if found, will activate
itself. As long as both servers are listening on different ports, you
can even run both on the same machine.

The big caveat here is that if you are using Apache 2 and PHP, you
should only ever use the prefork MPM.

There is also a "bundle" package, mod_php (CSWphp),  which now doesn't
contain any files, but does contain dependencies for php4_cgi,
mod_php4_core, apache 1.3.x, and all the extensions. This emulates the
behavious of the old monolithic CSWphp build; for a full PHP4
installation, this is the package you'd install (pkg-get -i php).


2. Upgrading a current installation

If you are using a current CSWphp installation, upgrade your catalog,
and then upgrade the "mod_php" package. This will then upgrade your
mod_php to the new dummy build, and install the core php4_cgi and
mod_php4_core packages, along with all extensions.

This will however leave you with a full PHP installation, and you may
then want to uninstall some of  the PHP extensions you are not using.

-Mark
mark at blastwave.org