CloudFoundry & PHP: Update

Back in July, I released a build pack for running PHP applications on CloudFoundry.  Today I'm happy to announce a significant update to the build pack!

   https://github.com/dmikusa-pivotal/cf-php-build-pack

This effort is a total rewrite of the original build pack with the following goals.

• Maintain clean and easily understandable detect, compile and release scripts
• Execute quickly. Run detect, compile and release scripts with minimal effort, downloading as little as possible.
• Utilize a default configuration that "just works" for the majority of users.
• Allow application developers to override default build pack behavior and settings through configuration.
• Allow the build pack to be extended easily via extensions.
• Allow application developers to include custom extensions.
• Not be tied to one particular HTTP server. Support multiple and allow application developers to pick which they use.
• Provide better insight into the application environment. Allow application and servers to be easily monitored.
• Integrate all logs and output into loggregator.

The result is a huge improvement, with all the functionality of the old CF PHP & Apache Build Pack and lots of new features including... 

• Executes quickly. Run detect, compile and release scripts with minimal effort, downloading as little as possible.   
• Support for the latest versions of Apache HTTPD 2.4 and Nginx 1.5 
• Support for the latest versions of PHP 5.4 and 5.5 
• Support for a large set of PHP extensions, including amqp, apc, bz2, curl, dba, gd, gettext, gmp, imap, ldap, mcrypt, mongo, openssl, pdo_pgsql, pgsql, pspell, redis, xdebug and zlib 
• Versions of HTTPD, Nginx and PHP are automatically upgraded to the latest release just by re-staging an application 
• Allows for application developers to control which PHP extensions are installed 
• Allows for application developers to custom configure HTTPD, Nginx and / or PHP 
• Download location is configurable, allowing users to host binaries on the same network (i.e. run without an Internet connection) 
• Support for an extension mechanism that allows the build pack to provided additional functionality 
• Allows for application developers to provide custom extensions 
• Support for NewRelic with both bound services and when manually specifying a license key 
• Easy troubleshooting with the BP_DEBUG environment variable 
• All logging output is routed through stderr & stdout which is sent to loggregator 

If you’re interested in developing PHP applications or running a packaged PHP application on CloudFoundry, please take a look at our “30 Second Tutorial” or one of the build pack samples like PHPMyAdmin, Wordpress or the CodeIgniter Tutorial. 

Enjoy, and as always, feed back and PR’s are welcome!