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PHP

How to Troubleshoot Performance Issues

If your server is suddenly down or having performance issues and you're not sure where to begin, this article outlines some first-aid troubleshooting steps for discovering the cause.

Available PHP Extensions

The following is a list of PHP extensions enabled in ServerPilot's PHP builds. For unofficial PHP extensions, see our articles on installing popular third-party PHP extensions.

Available PHP Versions

ServerPilot supports apps running multiple PHP versions on a single server. The PHP versions available on a server are determined by the server's Ubuntu release as shown in the table below.

How to Change PHP Settings

You can change PHP settings for your apps by creating a file named .user.ini in your app's web root directory.

How to Install PHP PECL Extensions

PECL extensions are third-party extensions for PHP. These extensions often add new built-in functions to PHP that do not exist in the core PHP language.

How to Remove PHP Extensions

If you no longer need third-party PHP extensions you've installed, you can remove them. In the examples shown, replace "

How to Recompile PECL Extensions

You only need to recompile PECL extensions if you've upgraded Ubuntu. PECL extensions are third-party extensions for PHP. These extensions often add new built-in functions to PHP that do not exist in the core PHP language.

How to Analyze PHP access logs

The PHP access log is useful for evaluating how your application handles requests, this is especially true when evaluating the performance of PHP.

How to Update Composer

ServerPilot will automatically update Composer on your servers. If for any reason you need to upgrade Composer yourself, you can do so by running the following command as root:

How to Disable the PHP Opcache

In the examples shown, replace "X.Y" with your app's PHP version (for example, "8.4"). The purpose of PHP's opcache is to speed up your scripts and save CPU by storing compiled PHP scripts in memory.

How to Use Composer for PHP Dependency Management

Composer is a popular PHP dependency manager. Composer is installed by ServerPilot. However, because ServerPilot makes available multiple versions of PHP, you should invoke the correct Composer command for your app's version of PHP.

How to View PHP Settings with phpinfo

PHP includes a built-in function called phpinfo() for viewing PHP settings. This can be useful to check default PHP settings or to see if the changes to PHP settings you've made were done correctly.

How to Send Content-Length Response Headers from PHP

When a static file is requested from an app on your server, a Content-Length HTTP response header is automatically included in the response sent to the browser.

How to Change the PHP-FPM max_children Setting

The max_children setting limits the maximum number of simultaneously executing PHP requests an app is allowed to have. As a separate PHP process is required for each concurrently executing PHP request and each PHP process is a "

How to Install New Relic for Monitoring PHP Apps

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to install and configure New Relic for monitoring PHP apps. You need to follow this tutorial rather than the standard New Relic instructions because ServerPilot installs its own builds of PHP on your servers.

How to Reduce PHP and WordPress Memory Usage

Every server has a limited amount of memory, also known as RAM. The amount of memory your server has is determined by the type of server you're paying for at your server provider.

How to Use the PHP CLI

PHP's Command Line Interface (CLI) allows you to execute PHP scripts when logged in to your server through SSH.

How to Enable the PHP JIT Compiler

To enable the PHP JIT compiler, SSH into your server as root and edit the following file: /etc/php8.0-sp/conf.d/opcache.ini Add the following line to the end of the file:

How to Downgrade Composer to Version 1

With the release of Composer version 2, ServerPilot now provides this version to all servers by default. However, some applications may not be fully compatible with version 2, and so you may need to use version 1 until they address those incompatibilities.

How to Change the PHP Timezone

This article is about changing the PHP timezone. If you instead need to update PHP's database of timezone information, see how to update timezonedb.

How to Update the PHP timezonedb Version

This article is about updating the internal database of information PHP uses to determine the time based on any given timezone.

How to Change PHP Version from 5.4 to 5.5

ServerPilot allows you to change the PHP version under which your App runs after it's already been configured. Simply follow these steps:

How to Change PHP Version from 5.5 to 5.6

ServerPilot allows you to easily change your app's PHP version. This is a simple and powerful way to develop and test your WordPress, Drupal, Laravel, and other applications with PHP 5.

How to Change PHP Version from 5.6 to 7.0

ServerPilot allows you to easily change your app's PHP version. This is a simple and powerful way to develop and test your WordPress, Drupal, Laravel, and other applications with PHP 7.

How to Install PHP PEAR Libraries

PEAR is a command line PHP library manager that simply downloads PHP libraries hosted at http://pear.php.net. PEAR itself is already installed by ServerPilot.

Install Concrete5

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to use ServerPilot to install concrete5 on your server. Connecting your server First, you'll need to get yourself a server running 64-bit Ubuntu 16.

How to Install phpMyAdmin

In this tutorial, we'll show you how to install phpMyAdmin. This tutorial assumes you have already connected your server to ServerPilot and that you have created at least one app on the server.

How to Install phpMyAdmin on Its Own App

One copy of phpMyAdmin installed on a single app on your server will allow you to access all of your apps' databases; however, if you don't want phpMyAdmin installed on one of your existing apps, you can install it on its own with the same result.

How to Change the PHP Memory Limit

You can change the amount of memory PHP allots to each request by using a .user.ini file. Using .user.ini does not change the WordPress memory limit.

How to Change the Version of the 'php' Command

For each PHP version ServerPilot installs on your server, ServerPilot also installs the PHP command line interface (CLI) for that PHP version.

How to Increase File Upload Limits in PHP

If you receive errors when uploading files or images to your app, you can increase the file size upload limit by changing your app's PHP settings.

How to Use Clean URLs

Many developers prefer to use clean URLs like these in their apps: http://example.com/profiles/foo rather than URLs like the following that include the PHP script filename in the URL:

Customizing the PHP Configuration

Careful! We can't provide support for customizations or for any errors, downtime, or vulnerabilities you introduce through customizations. Unless you're absolutely sure about what you're doing, you should stop now!

How to Change max_execution_time

The PHP setting max_execution_time is the number of seconds PHP will allow a script to run before PHP terminates the script.

How to Increase max_input_vars

If your PHP app displays the following error: Warning: Unknown: Input variables exceeded 1000. To increase the limit change max_input_vars in php.

How to Install the PHP MDB2 Library and Its MySQL Driver Using PEAR

In the examples shown, replace "X.Y" with your app's PHP version (for example, "5.6" or "7.0"). MDB2 is a merge of the PEAR DC and the Metabase PHP database abstraction layers.

How to Perform HTTP Digest Authentication with PHP

HTTP Digest Authentication data sent to your app through request headers is accessible through the $_ENV['HTTP_AUTHORIZATION'] variable in PHP.

How to Read the PHP Slow Request Log

The PHP slow request log is where PHP records information about any request that takes more than five seconds to execute.

How to Reduce PHP and WordPress CPU Usage

Your server's CPU usage is related to the total amount of traffic your apps receive and how CPU-intensive your apps are.

How to Restrict the Directories PHP Can Access Using open_basedir

By default, PHP does not restrict which files and directories your PHP scripts can access. To restrict the directories that can be accessed, you can use PHP's open_basedir setting.

How to Set Environment Variables

Some PHP applications look for configuration data in environment variables. You can set environment variables for your app using .

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