IIS Aid

Configure PHP.ini

You could very easily write a series of articles regarding setting the various php.ini directives, so to try and keep this article short I will just deal with the basics here. When serving PHP on IIS the php.ini file is the only place that options are set, and if no php.ini file can be found then the defaults are loaded. The limitation of a single php configuration for an entire server is perhaps one of the biggest disadvantages with hosting PHP applications on IIS, especially in shared hosting environments.

There are actually only a handful of setting you will might want to look at configuring in php.ini, and they are the path to your extensions, sessions, and upload directories. You'll also may wish to enabled a few PHP extensions to get added functionality from PHP that might be required by some PHP apps, and perhaps set some PHP logging options.

• Open your PHP installation directory (e.g D:\PHP) and copy php.ini-recommended and rename the copy to php.ini
• Open php.ini and do a search for extension_dir = "./" and replace it with extension_dir = "D:\PHP\ext" where D:\PHP\ext is the path to your extensions directory (it's the one with all the files that begin with "php_" in it). The path to your PHP installation will be used for the next several steps, so take care that you modify them to suit your own environment.
• Search for ;session.save_path = "/tmp" and replace it with session.save_path = "D:\PHP\sessions" (note the semi colon (;) is removed). This will be used to store PHP session information which is used by many PHP applications.
• Search for ;upload_tmp_dir = and replace it with upload_tmp_dir = "D:\PHP\upload" (note the semi colon (;) is removed). This is used for all your HTTP upload files, and if not set your system temp will be used.
• Search for ;error_log = filename and replace with error_log = "D:\PHP\log\php.log" (note the semi colon (;) is removed). This is where all your PHP logging information is kept when enabled. You can also configure PHP to log data to your Event Log, but it requires loosening the privileges on the IUSR_COMPUTERNAME account IIS uses.
• Search for ;extension=php_mysql.dll and remove the semi colan (;) from infront of it so it appears as extension=php_mysql.dll. You'll almost certainly need this PHP extension loaded as any PHP application that uses the MySQL database will need it.