IIS/PHP/FCgi wrong setup - No page no error

Question

Not the first setup I install, but I can't figure out what's going on ...

System :
- Windows Server 2003
- IIS with FastCGI
- PHP 5.3.1

I've setup :
- fcgi.ini as usual with a single [PHP] section pointing on my C:\PHP\php-cgi.exe
- IIS / FCGI mapping on .php file
- PHP.ini is almost standard. Just enabled full error logging and MySQL extension.

The strangiest is the result :
- When I call my test.php in my browser it just "connecting ..." for ever. No display, no error.

Even if my test.php contains no PHP !
But if I rename it test.html everything's OK !

I'm a little lost here ...

Answer 1

I recently implemented a similar setup:

• Windows Server 2003 Web Edition
• IIS / FastCGI (http://www.iis.net/expand/fastcgi)
• PHP 5.3.1 (installed via zip file into c:\php)

From my deployment notes, the install steps were:

• Download PHP 5.3.1 zip (http://windows.php.net/download/, note the "Which version do I choose?" section)
• Install into c:\php
• Test php -v works on the command line (in c:\php)
• Associate .php with FastCGI: IIS Manager -> machine -> Web Sites -> site -> right click, choose properties -> choose "Home Directory" tab, click "Configuration", Mappings tab. Config for .php looks like:

• Configure FastCGI's config file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\fcgiext.ini) with at least:

    [Types]
    php=PHP

    [PHP]
    ExePath=c:\php\php-cgi.exe

• Append/change the following to c:\php\php.ini. Without this config, my config bounces between giving blank pages and not loading at all (I guess this is your problem):

    fastcgi.impersonate = 1
    fastcgi.logging = 0
    cgi.fix_pathinfo=1
    cgi.force_redirect = 0

• Set

  display_errors

  on in c:\php\php.ini and uncomment extension=php_mysql.dll.
• Restart IIS for the site (click the stop/play buttons)

In this config, you've essentially got two components, the plumbing between IIS-FastCGI-PHP, and PHP itself. I'd recommend isolating which of these isn't working:

• Temporarily edit fcgiext.ini and point the PHP ExePath to something different, e.g. c:\php\nothere.exe. If the server starts returning "The FastCGI executable could not be found" for PHP requests, then I'd FastCGI was working correctly, and PHP is at fault.
• Run PHP with its default config, the fastcgi/cgi changes above and display_errors on. You'll need to restart IIS (and possibly kill off any php-cgi processes) for the site you're restarting for the changes to be recognised.
• Run PHP on the command line with a simple phpinfo(); script, to check basic operation, and note where the loaded php.ini is. This checks a rogue config file (e.g. in c:\, c:\windows etc) is not being used.

These steps confirm (at least) the PHP executable is being invoked, with the most basic config.

hope this helps,

Lockie

Answer 2

It's working now : I simply forgot to correctly set the PHP setting "extension_dir" to "ext", which it not by default in the PHP Zip version.