PHP and FastCGI Performance Optimizations

PHP + FastCGI
Performance Optimizations
Alessandro Pilotti
Twitter: @alexpilotti
MVP ASP.NET / IIS

MCSD, MCAD, MCSE, MCDBA, MCT
Red Hat Certified Engineer

PHP on IIS
 FastCGI
 Best available option
 ISAPI
 The way to go before FastCGI
 Low reliability due to reentrance problems
 DLL loaded at W3SVC instance level
 Security issues

 CGI (not FastCGI)
 Awful performance

How to get PHP on Windows
 Binaries
 http://windows.php.NET/download/
 Visual Studio C++ CRT DLL: VC6 or VC9?
 Apache: VC6
 IIS: VC9
 Thread safe or not thread safe?
 Thread safe for ISAPI
 Non Thread Safe for CGI/FastCGI
 Massive performance improvement!
 x86 vs x64
 Do you need > 4GB of process space?

WebPI
 Microsoft Web Platform Installer (WebPI) is a free tool that
simplifies deployment of web solutions
 IIS features and extensions
 WinCache, PHP Drivers for SQL Server, PHP Manager
 Frameworks
 .NET, PHP, etc
 Web applications
 Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, DotNetNuke, Orchard, etc
 Database
 MS SQL Server Express, MySQL, etc
 WebMatrix
 Both PHP 5.2 and 5.3 can be easily deployed via WebPI
 Local cache:
 "%localappdata%Microsoftweb platform installer"

Compiling PHP
 If you want:
 A PHP release available in sources
 A development build for testing purposes

 What do you need:
 Sources, e.g.: http://php.NET/downloads.php
 Subversion client (e.g. TortoiseSVN)
 Instructions:
 https://wiki.php.net/internals/windows/stepbystepbuild
 PHP build extras
 http://windows.php.net/downloads/php-sdk/
 Deps and binaries: bison.exe, flex.exe, etc. and additional include and libs
 Visual Studio 2008 or 2010
 The Express edition (free) is enough

Compiling PHP
 Unpack the downloaded sources, e.g in c:php-src
 Use e.g 7-zip to inflate tar.gz or tar.bz

 Or via SVN:
 svn checkout https://svn.php.NET/repository/php/php-src/branches/PHP_5_4
php-src-5.4

 Unpack the Win32 build extras in the same dir

 Start a Visual Studio 2010 command prompt
 cd php-src
 set PATH=%PATH%;win32buildbin
 set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;win32buildinclude
 set LIB=%LIB%;win32buildlib
 buildconf
 configure –disable-zts (and required extensions)
 nmake

 Copy binaries (php-cgi.exe and php5.dll) to your PHP directory

Profile Guided Optimizations
(PGO)
 Feature of the MS C/C++ compiler (VS Professional or Premium)
 Patch to PHP build environment available here:
 http://www.ksingla.NET/wp-
content/uploads/2010/05/pgo_build.patch.txt

 Steps
1. compile PHP with instrumentation enabled --enable-pgi
2. collect training data (.pgc files)
3. compile PHP with PGO –with-pgo
 Expected performance improvement: 10-17%
 More details
 http://www.ksingla.NET/2010/05/php-pgo-build-for-maximum-
performance-on-windows/

CGI and FastCGI
 CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is the oldest way used to
generate dynamic content on a web server
 A separate process is spawned for each request (!)
 Request input and response output are handled via standard
input / output
 Massive overhead due to process handling by the OS
 FastCGI is a variation
 A separate process is spawned but persists among multiple
requests
 Request input and response output are handled via sockets or
named pipes
 Processes can be restarted independently
 Good performance
 Very popular in the Apache environment (mod_fastcgid), for
PHP, Perl, Ruby, etc

IIS FastCGI 1.5
 CGI is slow: every request generates a process instance!

 FastCGI employs the same process for many requests

 Supported on IIS 7.x and IIS 6.0 (the latter via fcgiext.dll
ISAPI)

 Written in collaboration with Zend (PHP) but is generic

 In IIS 7.x: Enable CGI among the IIS role services

 Note: Install Hotfix KB980363 on IIS 7.0 to get version 1.5!

IIS FastCGI - Versions
Feature 5.1/6.0 7.0 7.5
Monitoring file Yes Yes Yes
changes
Real-Time max Inst. Yes Yes Yes
tuning
STDERR support Yes Yes Yes
SIGTERM support Yes Yes Yes

Env. variable Yes Yes Yes
_FCGI_X_PIPE_
Proc. Pool per Yes Yes Yes
application
UTF-8 variable Yes Yes No
encoding
IIS CPU Limit support No Yes Yes

FastCGI - PHP
 Install PHP 5.2 or 5.3
 During setup choose FastCGI

 As an alternative, deploy via WebPI

 WP3P.exe
 Loads iisfcgi.dll
 Executes php-cgi.exe
 Config: PHP.INI
 E.g.: fastcgi.impersonate = 1

PHP.INI FastCGI Settings
 fastcgi.impersonate
 supports the ability to impersonate security tokens of the
calling client
 Default: 1
 fastcgi.logging
 Turns on SAPI logging when using FastCGI
 Default: 1

Web.config - FastCGI
<configuration>
…
<system.webServer>
…
<handlers>
<clear />
<add name="PHP53_via_FastCGI" path="*.php"
verb="GET,HEAD,POST"
modules="FastCgiModule"
scriptProcessor="C:Program Files (x86)PHPv5.3php-
cgi.exe"
resourceType="Either" />
</handlers>
</system.webServer>
</configuration>

PHP Manager
 A dedicated tool to support multiple PHP installations
 Features:
 Easy management of the PHP version used by a web app
 Easy management of the PHP parameters
 No direct editing of PHP.INI needed
 Easy management of PHP Extensions
 Best practices
 Quick inspections via phpinfo()
 Easy registration of new PHP installations

 Deployable via WebPI or standalone setup

PHP and FastCGI Performance Optimizations

PHP and FastCGI Performance Optimizations

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