Why install PHP + FastCGI?

Mod-PHP comes installed with WampServer, and it is slow.

You also cannot utilise the Zend opcode cache, which is included with PHP itself since PHP 5.5.

Steps to install PHP + FastCGI

  1. Identify the version of Apache server that is running. Tips: visit http://127.0.0.1/xampp/phpinfo.php on your browser. Search for the SERVER_SOFTWARE environment variable, which will indicate Apache version. (Example: Apache/2.4.4 (Win32) OpenSSL/1.0.1g PHP/5.4.16 ).

  2. Download mod_fcgid binaries for windows. Extract the files and copy “mod_fcgid.so” into the apache modules folder. The default folder path will be C:\xampp\apache\modules.

  3. Download the latest PHP binaries for windows. (Link: http://windows.php.net/download/). Choose the non-thread-safe (nts) version for fastcgi usage. The default PHP installation in XAMPP is thread-safe (ts) and will be replaced later. Create a folder (eg: C:\Xampp\php5.5.12-nts) for your new php installation. Extract and copy all the files into the folder.

  4. Edit the Apache configuration file. Open the file C:\Xampp\apache\conf\extra\httpd-xampp.conf in a text editor such as Notepad++.

    1. Look for the section PHP-Module setup. Disable mod_php by commenting out them as below:

      #
# PHP-Module setup
#
#LoadFile "C:/xampp/php/php5ts.dll"
#LoadModule php5_module "C:/xampp/php/php5apache2_4.dll"

#<FilesMatch "\.php$">
#    SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
#</FilesMatch">
#<FilesMatch "\.phps$"">
#    SetHandler application/x-httpd-php-source
#</FilesMatch">
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    2. Enable mod_fcgid by adding the following lines after the section:

      #
# PHP-FastCGI setup
#
LoadModule fcgid_module modules/mod_fcgid.so

<IfModule fcgid_module>
    FcgidInitialEnv PATH "C:/Xampp/php5.5.12-nts;C:/WINDOWS/system32;C:/WINDOWS;C:/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem;"
    FcgidInitialEnv SystemRoot "C:/Windows"
    FcgidInitialEnv SystemDrive "C:"
    FcgidInitialEnv TEMP "C:/Xampp/tmp"
    FcgidInitialEnv TMP "C:/Xampp/tmp"
    FcgidInitialEnv windir "C:/WINDOWS"
    FcgidIOTimeout 64
    FcgidConnectTimeout 16
    FcgidMaxRequestsPerProcess 1000
    FcgidMaxProcesses 3
    FcgidMaxRequestLen 8131072
    # Location php.ini:
    FcgidInitialEnv PHPRC "C:/Xampp/php5.5.12-nts"
    FcgidInitialEnv PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS 1000

    <Files ~ "\.php$">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks ExecCGI
        AddHandler fcgid-script .php
        FcgidWrapper "C:/Xampp/php5.5.12-nts/php-cgi.exe" .php
    </Files>
</IfModule>

<IfModule mime_module>
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php3
</IfModule>
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  5. Create a new php configuration file by copying the file at C:\Xampp\php5.5.12-nts\php.ini-development to C:\Xampp\php5.5.12-nts\php.ini.

  6. Finally, restart Apache server and PHP should be running in FastCGI mode. Visit http://127.0.0.1/xampp/phpinfo.php and check that ServerAPI is CGI/FastCGI to confirm.

Steps to Enable Zend OPcache

  1. Edit the php configuration file at C:\Xampp\php5.5.12-nts\php.ini.

    1. Locate the section [opcache].

    2. Add this line before the section:

      zend_extension=php_opcache.dll
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    3. Uncomment the configuration lines in the section:

      [opcache]
; Determines if Zend OPCache is enabled
opcache.enable=1

; Determines if Zend OPCache is enabled for the CLI version of PHP
opcache.enable_cli=0

; The OPcache shared memory storage size.
opcache.memory_consumption=64

; The amount of memory for interned strings in Mbytes.
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=4

; The maximum number of keys (scripts) in the OPcache hash table.
; Only numbers between 200 and 100000 are allowed.
opcache.max_accelerated_files=2000

; The maximum percentage of "wasted" memory until a restart is scheduled.
opcache.max_wasted_percentage=5

; When this directive is enabled, the OPcache appends the current working
; directory to the script key, thus eliminating possible collisions between
; files with the same name (basename). Disabling the directive improves
; performance, but may break existing applications.
opcache.use_cwd=1

; When disabled, you must reset the OPcache manually or restart the
; webserver for changes to the filesystem to take effect.
opcache.validate_timestamps=1

; How often (in seconds) to check file timestamps for changes to the shared
; memory storage allocation. ("1" means validate once per second, but only
; once per request. "0" means always validate)
opcache.revalidate_freq=2

; Enables or disables file search in include_path optimization
opcache.revalidate_path=0

; If disabled, all PHPDoc comments are dropped from the code to reduce the
; size of the optimized code.
opcache.save_comments=0

; If disabled, PHPDoc comments are not loaded from SHM, so "Doc Comments"
; may be always stored (save_comments=1), but not loaded by applications
; that don't need them anyway.
opcache.load_comments=0

; If enabled, a fast shutdown sequence is used for the accelerated code
opcache.fast_shutdown=1

; Allow file existence override (file_exists, etc.) performance feature.
opcache.enable_file_override=0

; A bitmask, where each bit enables or disables the appropriate OPcache
; passes
opcache.optimization_level=0xffffffff
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  2. Finally, restart Apache web server. Visit http://127.0.0.1/xampp/phpinfo.php and search for Opcache. If it is found, then you have successfully enabled opcode caching!