The default is to build PHP as a CGI program. This creates a
commandline interpreter, which can be used for CGI processing, or
for non-web-related PHP scripting. If you are running a web
server PHP has module support for, you should generally go for
that solution for performance reasons. However, the CGI version
enables users to run different PHP-enabled pages under
different user-ids.
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server
is open to several possible attacks. Please read our
CGI security section to learn how to
defend yourself from those attacks. |
As of PHP 4.3.0, some important additions have happened to PHP. A new
SAPI named CLI also exists and it has the same name as the CGI binary.
What is installed at {PREFIX}/bin/php depends on your
configure line and this is described in detail in the manual section
named Using PHP from the command
line. For further details please read that section of the manual.
If you have built PHP as a CGI program, you may test your build
by typing make test. It is always a good idea
to test your build. This way you may catch a problem with PHP on
your platform early instead of having to struggle with it later.
If you have built PHP 3 as a CGI program, you may benchmark your
build by typing make bench. Note that if
safe mode is on by default, the benchmark may not be able to finish if
it takes longer then the 30 seconds allowed. This is because the
set_time_limit() can not be used in
safe mode. Use the max_execution_time
configuration setting to control this time for your own
scripts. make bench ignores the configuration file.
Note:
make bench is only available for PHP 3.
Some server supplied
environment variables are not defined in the
current CGI/1.1 specification.
Only the following variables are defined there: AUTH_TYPE,
CONTENT_LENGTH, CONTENT_TYPE,
GATEWAY_INTERFACE, PATH_INFO,
PATH_TRANSLATED, QUERY_STRING,
REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_HOST,
REMOTE_IDENT, REMOTE_USER,
REQUEST_METHOD, SCRIPT_NAME,
SERVER_NAME, SERVER_PORT,
SERVER_PROTOCOL, and SERVER_SOFTWARE.
Everything else should be treated as 'vendor extensions'.
