How set an environment variable in PHP with Apache/FastCGI?

Question

I need to define an environment variable named SQLANY17 and this variable should be available in PHP (i.e. under "Environment" in the standard phpinfo() page). PHP is executed via FastCGI and I'm running CentOS 7 x64, Apache 2.4.6 and PHP 5.5.30.

I've edited /etc/httpd/conf.d/fcgid.conf which already exists in my distribution. According to the documentation an environment can be defined using FcgidInitialEnv.

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
  # ...
  FcgidInitialEnv SQLANY17 /opt/sqlanywhere17
</IfModule>

However this doesn't work, even after a full machine reboot. Any ideas? I'm sure the fcgid.conf is correcly parsed because typing some random chars prevent the Apache server restart.

In my setup Nginx proxies requests to Apache This is nginx.conf for host example.com:

server {
    listen 192.168.1.131:80;

    server_name example.com;
    server_name www.example.com;
    server_name ipv4.example.com;

    client_max_body_size 128m;

    root "/var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs";
    access_log "/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/logs/proxy_access_log";
    error_log "/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/logs/proxy_error_log";

    if ($host ~* ^www.example.com$) {
        rewrite ^(.*)$ http://example.com$1 permanent;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://192.168.1.131:7080;
        proxy_set_header Host             $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Accel-Internal /internal-nginx-static-location;
        access_log off;
    }
}

And this is httpd.conf for the same host:

<VirtualHost 192.168.1.131:7080 >
    ServerName "example.com:80"
    ServerAlias "www.example.com"
    ServerAlias "ipv4.example.com"
    ServerAdmin "administrator@example.com"
    UseCanonicalName Off

    DocumentRoot "/var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs"
    CustomLog /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/logs/access_log
    ErrorLog "/var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/logs/error_log"

    <IfModule mod_suexec.c>
        SuexecUserGroup "example" "psacln"
    </IfModule>

    <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
        FcgidInitialEnv PP_CUSTOM_PHP_INI /var/www/vhosts/system/example.com/etc/php.ini
        FcgidInitialEnv PP_CUSTOM_PHP_CGI_INDEX plesk-php55-fastcgi
        FcgidMaxRequestLen 134217728
    </IfModule>

    <Directory /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs>
        <IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
            <Files ~ (\.php$)>
                SetHandler fcgid-script
                FCGIWrapper /var/www/cgi-bin/cgi_wrapper/cgi_wrapper .php
                Options +ExecCGI
            </Files>
        </IfModule>

        Options -Includes -ExecCGI
    </Directory>

    <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
        RewriteEngine On
        RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.example.com$ [NC]
        RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://example.com$1 [L,R=301]
    </IfModule>
</VirtualHost>

Answer 1

First, you need to make sure the module is loaded. Are you sure it is?

PHP applications are usually configured using the FcgidWrapper directive and a corresponding wrapper script. The wrapper script can be an appropriate place to define any environment variables required by the application, such as PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS or anything else. (Environment variables can also be set with FcgidInitialEnv, but they then apply to all applications.)

Here is an example that uses a wrapper script to invoke PHP:

PHP application - /usr/local/phpapp/phpinfo.php

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

Configuration directives

# FcgidMaxRequestsPerProcess should be <= PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS
# The example PHP wrapper script overrides the default PHP setting.
FcgidMaxRequestsPerProcess 10000

# Uncomment the following line if cgi.fix_pathinfo is set to 1 in
# php.ini:
# FcgidFixPathinfo 1

Alias /phpapp/ /usr/local/phpapp/
<Location /phpapp/>
AddHandler fcgid-script .php
Options +ExecCGI
FcgidWrapper /usr/local/bin/php-wrapper .php

# Customize the next two directives for your requirements.
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Location>

PHP wrapper script - /usr/local/bin/php-wrapper

#!/bin/sh
# Set desired PHP_FCGI_* environment variables.
# Example:
# PHP FastCGI processes exit after 500 requests by default.
PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=10000
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS

# Replace with the path to your FastCGI-enabled PHP executable
exec /usr/local/bin/php-cgi

Referenced: http://httpd.apache.org/mod_fcgid/mod/mod_fcgid.html