You are here: Home // Getting Started
Apache module
When PHP is used as an Apache module it inherits Apache’s user permissions (typically those of the “nobody” user).
CGI binary
Possible attacks
Using PHP as a CGI binary is an option for setups that for some reason do not wish to integrate PHP as a module into server software (like Apache), or will use PHP with different kinds of CGI wrappers to create safe chroot and setuid environments for scripts. This setup usually involves installing executable PHP binary to the web server cgi-bin directory.
Problems?
Read the FAQ
Some problems are more common than others. The most common ones are listed in the PHP FAQ, found at http://www.php.net/FAQ.php
Bug reports
If you think you have found a bug in PHP, please report it. The PHP developers probably don’t know about it, and unless you report it, chances are it won’t be fixed. You can report bugs using the bug-tracking system
Installation on Windows 95/98/NT systems
This install guide will help you install and configure PHP on your Windows 9x/NT webservers. This guide was compiled by Bob Silva. The latest revision can be found at http://www.umesd.k12.or.us/php/win32install.html.
This guide provides installation support for:
Personal Web Server (Newest version recommended)
Internet Information Server 3 or 4
Apache 1.3.x
Omni HTTPd 2.0b1
General Installation
Downloading the latest version
The source code, and binary distributions for some platforms (including Windows), can be found at http://www.php.net/.
A brief history of PHP
PHP was conceived sometime in the fall of 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf. Early non-released versions were used on his home page to keep track of who was looking at his online resume. The first version used by others was available sometime in early 1995 and was known as the Personal Home Page Tools. It consisted of a very simplistic parser engine that only understood a few special macros
What can PHP do?
At the most basic level, PHP can do anything any other CGI program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or send and receive cookies.
Perhaps the strongest and most significant feature in PHP is its support for a wide range of databases. Writing a database-enabled web page is incredibly simple. The following databases are currently supported:
Adabas
What is PHP?
PHP (officially “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor”) is a server-side HTML-embedded scripting language.
Simple answer, but what does that mean? An example:
Example 1-1. An introductory example
<html>
<head>
<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php echo "Hi, I'm a PHP script!"; ?>
</body>
</html>
Notice
