Configure PHP in Azure App Service Web Apps

Introduction

This guide will show you how to configure the built-in PHP runtime for Web Apps in Azure App Service, provide a custom PHP runtime, and enable extensions. To use App Service, sign up for the free trial. To get the most from this guide, you should first create a PHP web app in App Service.

How to: Change the built-in PHP version

By default, PHP 5.4 is installed and immediately available for use when you create an App Service web app. The best way to see the available release revision, its default configuration, and the enabled extensions is to deploy a script that calls the phpinfo() function.

PHP 5.5 and PHP 5.6 versions are also available, but not enabled by default. To update the PHP version, follow one of these methods:

Azure Portal

1. Browse to your web app in the Azure Portal and click on the Settings button.

   

2. From the Settings blade select Application Settings and choose the new PHP version.

   

3. Click the Save button at the top of the Web app settings blade.

   

Azure PowerShell (Windows)

1. Open Azure PowerShell, and login to your account:

   PS C:\> Login-AzureRmAccount
   

2. Set the PHP version for the web app.

   PS C:\> Set-AzureWebsite -PhpVersion [5.4 | 5.5 | 5.6] -Name {site-name}
   

3. The PHP version is now set. You can confirm these settings:

   PS C:\> Get-AzureWebsite -Name {site-name} | findstr PhpVersion
   

Azure Command-Line Interface (Linux, Mac, Windows)

To use the Azure Command-Line Interface, you must have Node.js installed on your computer.

1. Open Terminal, and login to your account.

   azure login
   

2. Set the PHP version for the web app.

   azure site set --php-version [5.4 | 5.5] {site-name}
   

3. The PHP version is now set. You can confirm these settings:

   azure site show {site-name}
   

How to: Change the built-in PHP configurations

For any built-in PHP runtime, you can change any of the configuration options by following the steps below. (For information about php.ini directives, see List of php.ini directives.)

Changing PHP_INI_USER, PHP_INI_PERDIR, PHP_INI_ALL configuration settings

1. Add a .user.ini file to your root directory.

2. Add configuration settings to the .user.ini file using the same syntax you would use in a php.ini file. For example, if you wanted to turn the display_errors setting on and set upload_max_filesize setting to 10M, your .user.ini file would contain this text:

   ; Example Settings
   display_errors=On
   upload_max_filesize=10M
   

3. Deploy your web app.

4. Restart the web app. (Restarting is necessary because the frequency with which PHP reads .user.ini files is governed by the user_ini.cache_ttl setting, which is a system level setting and is 300 seconds (5 minutes) by default. Restarting the web app forces PHP to read the new settings in the .user.ini file.)

As an alternative to using a .user.ini file, you can use the ini_set() function in scripts to set configuration options that are not system-level directives.

Changing PHP_INI_SYSTEM configuration settings

1. Add an App Setting to your Web App with the key PHP_INI_SCAN_DIR and value d:\home\site\ini
2. Create an settings.ini file using Kudu Console (http://<site-name>.scm.azurewebsite.net) in the d:\home\site\ini directory.

3. Add configuration settings to the settings.ini file using the same syntax you would use in a php.ini file. For example, if you wanted to point the curl.cainfo setting to a *.crt file and set 'wincache.maxfilesize' setting to 512K, your settings.ini file would contain this text:

   ; Example Settings
   curl.cainfo="%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Git\bin\curl-ca-bundle.crt"
   wincache.maxfilesize=512
   

4. Restart your Web App to load the changes.

How to: Enable extensions in the default PHP runtime

As noted in the previous section, the best way to see the default PHP version, its default configuration, and the enabled extensions is to deploy a script that calls phpinfo(). To enable additional extensions, follow the steps below:

Configure via ini settings

1. Add a ext directory to the d:\home\site directory.
2. Put .dll extension files in the ext directory (for example, php_mongo.dll and php_xdebug.dll). Make sure that the extensions are compatible with default version of PHP (which is, as of this writing, PHP 5.4) and are VC9 and non-thread-safe (nts) compatible.
3. Add an App Setting to your Web App with the key PHP_INI_SCAN_DIR and value d:\home\site\ini
4. Create an ini file in d:\home\site\ini called extensions.ini.

5. Add configuration settings to the extensions.ini file using the same syntax you would use in a php.ini file. For example, if you wanted to enable the MongoDB and XDebug extensions, your extensions.ini file would contain this text:

   ; Enable Extensions
   extension=d:\home\site\ext\php_mongo.dll
   zend_extension=d:\home\site\ext\php_xdebug.dll
   

6. Restart your Web App to load the changes.

Configure via App Setting

1. Add a bin directory to the root directory.
2. Put .dll extension files in the bin directory (for example, php_mongo.dll). Make sure that the extensions are compatible with default version of PHP (which is, as of this writing, PHP 5.4) and are VC9 and non-thread-safe (nts) compatible.
3. Deploy your web app.

4. Browse to your web app in the Azure Portal and click on the Settings button.

   

5. From the Settings blade select Application Settings and scroll to the App settings section.

6. In the App settings section, create a PHP_EXTENSIONS key. The value for this key would be a path relative to website root: bin\your-ext-file.

   

7. Click the Save button at the top of the Web app settings blade.

   

Zend extensions are also supported by using a PHP_ZENDEXTENSIONS key. To enable multiple extensions, include a comma-separated list of .dll files for the app setting value.

How to: Use a custom PHP runtime

Instead of the default PHP runtime, App Service Web Apps can use a PHP runtime that you provide to execute PHP scripts. The runtime that you provide can be configured by a php.ini file that you also provide. To use a custom PHP runtime with Web Apps, follow the steps below.

1. Obtain a non-thread-safe, VC9 or VC11 compatible version of PHP for Windows. Recent releases of PHP for Windows can be found here: http://windows.php.net/download/. Older releases can be found in the archive here: http://windows.php.net/downloads/releases/archives/.
2. Modify the php.ini file for your runtime. Note that any configuration settings that are system-level-only directives will be ignored by Web Apps. (For information about system-level-only directives, see List of php.ini directives).
3. Optionally, add extensions to your PHP runtime and enable them in the php.ini file.
4. Add a bin directory to your root directory, and put the directory that contains your PHP runtime in it (for example, bin\php).
5. Deploy your web app.

6. Browse to your web app in the Azure Portal and click on the Settings button.

   

7. From the Settings blade select Application Settings and scroll to the Handler mappings section. Add *.php to the Extension field and add the path to the php-cgi.exe executable. If you put your PHP runtime in the bin directory in the root of you application, the path will be D:\home\site\wwwroot\bin\php\php-cgi.exe.

   

8. Click the Save button at the top of the Web app settings blade.

   

How to: Enable Composer automation in Azure

By default, App Service doesn't do anything with composer.json, if you have one in your PHP project. If you use Git deployment, you can enable composer.json processing during git push by enabling the Composer extension.

1. In your PHP web app's blade in the Azure portal, click Tools > Extensions.

   

2. Click Add, then click Composer.

   

3. Click OK to accept legal terms. Click OK again to add the extension.

   The Installed extensions blade will now show the Composer extension.
   

4. Now, perform git add, git commit, and git push like in the previous section. You'll now see that Composer is installing dependencies defined in composer.json.

   

Next steps

For more information, see the PHP Developer Center.