Uly.me

cloud engineer

PHP

PHP Modules

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Here are some missing PHP modules on my WordPress install. 

apt install php-gd php-dom php-mbstring php-imagick php-zip

Reboot Apache after the install.

systemctl restart apache2

List Available PHP Modules

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Here’s how to list the available PHP modules.

apt-cache search php- | less

To get details about a module.

apt-cache show php-curl

To install a module.

apt install php-curl

Or install all modules.

apt install php*

Restart Apache after each install.

systemctl restart apache2

Phpinfo Blank Page

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Here’s how to fix when phpinfo is displaying a blank page. The install is missing this php module.

apt install php libapache2-mod-php

Restart after install.

service apache2 restart

HTTPS in CodeIgniter

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If you switched to HTTPS in Apache, make sure to update CodeIgniter’s config file.

vim /var/www/applications/config/config.php

Change the base URL to https.

$config['base_url']	= 'https://yourdomain.com/ci/';

CodeIgniter 2.1.3 on PHP7

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If you’re still running older versions of CodeIgniter, here are a couple of tips to make it work with PHP7.

  1. Make sure to install all PHP tools and libraries that comes with PHP7. I was missing curl.
  2. Change your database driver from mysql to mysqli (application/config/config.php).
  3. Fix the /system/core/Common.php error or as some prefer, upgrade to a newer version.

Considering v2.1.3 is very old (currently 3.1.10) , I’m surprised it works with PHP7 with just a few modifications.

Comparing Time

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Here’s a neat little PHP script that compares a set date/time to the current time. The time() function sets the $now variable to the current Unix timestamp. The strtotime() function converts a date string to a Unix timestamp. The result is assigned to the $setdate variable. The two variables containing Unix timestamps are then compared. A simple if-then statement determines if the date is in the past or future.

date_default_timezone_set('America/Los_Angeles');
$setdate = strtotime("May 9, 2017 12:27PM");
$now = time();
if ( $setdate > $now ) : echo 'Future date'; else : echo 'Past date'; endif;

You may have to change the default timezone if your server is in a different timezone.

Quick Database Check

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Here’s a quick PHP script to check if your web server can connect to your MySQL database. It’s a neat little script if you don’t have any application installed yet, and you just want to see if your web server setup can quickly connect to the database. All you have to do is create a new file called connect.php, and place the following code inside. Just change the username, password and database. Most likely the hostname will be localhost.

$ sudo nano /var/www/html/connect.php
$username = "user";
$password = "password";
$hostname = "hostname";
$database = "database";
 
$dbhandle = mysql_connect($hostname, $username, $password) or die("Unable to connect to MySQL");
echo "Successfully Connected to the MySQL Database.<br/>";
 
$selected = mysql_select_db("$dbname", $dbhandle) or die("Could not select database");
echo "Successfully Connected to Database called: $database";

It’s also available on my Github gist.

Laravel 5.4 Install

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This is the installation of Laravel 5.4 on an Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS. Laravel requires that you run Apache, MySQL and PHP. In this installation, I’m using the following versions: Apache 2.4.18, MySQL 5.7.17 and PHP 7.0.15. The installation of Laravel has changed over the years. I wished the installation was simpler. You can try Forge, but it’s not free. It also requires that you have an account at Linode, Digital Ocean or AWS. Forge costs $15 per month and Forge Plus is $30 per month. If you don’t want to pay, I’m afraid you are going to have to install Laravel yourself. Laravel installation may vary based on the distro you’re using. These instructions are for the Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS.

Run Update

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Install Apache

sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo service apache2 restart

Install MySQL

sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo mysql_secure_installation

Install PHP

sudo apt-get install php libapache2-mod-php php-mbstring php-zip php-xml php-mysql

Install Composer

sudo curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | sudo php — —install-dir=/usr/local/bin —filename=composer
# you may have to move composer manually if it doesn't work
sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer
# check if composer is accessible globally
composer -V

Install Laravel Installer

composer global require "laravel/installer"
# Using alias instead of $PATH
echo 'alias laravel="~/.composer/vendor/bin/laravel"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
# add source ~/.bashrc to .profile to load automatically
echo 'source ~/.bashrc' >> ~/.profile
# restart apache
sudo service apache2 restart
# check if laravel is accessible globally
laravel

Install New Laravel Project

# set permissions
cd /var/www/
sudo chown -R ubuntu:ubuntu /var/www/html
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html
# install new project
cd /var/www/html
laravel new project
# give apache permissions 
sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/www/html/project/storage
sudo chgrp -R www-data /var/www/html/project/bootstrap/cache

Configure Apache

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
sudo cp 000-default.conf project.conf
sudo nano project.conf
#
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName local.project.com
  ServerAdmin admin@project.com
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/project/public
  <Directory "/var/www/html/project">
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>
  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
#
sudo a2ensite project.conf
sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
sudo service apache2 restart

Finally, you can now access Laravel from the browser from the server IP address or domain.