Create a custom PHP application

Many users run a Bitnami stack as a development environment for their own PHP projects (as opposed to running third-party applications such as Joomla! or WordPress). To deploy your PHP application in this environment, you have two options:

• To make a single PHP application accessible at the root URL of the Web server (for example, http://localhost), simply copy the PHP files into the /opt/bitnami/apache2/htdocs folder. For an example, take a look at the phpinfo example.

• To have several applications running, create the same structure used by Bitnami when installing Bitnami PHP applications. Recent versions of Bitnami stacks ship a demo application with this structure to help you get started. To use this, follow the steps below:

  • Copy the /opt/bitnami/docs/demo folder into the /opt/bitnami/apps directory.

    $ sudo cp -r /opt/bitnami/docs/demo /opt/bitnami/apps
    

  • Add the following line to the end of the /opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami/bitnami-apps-prefix.conf file:

    Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/demo/conf/httpd-prefix.conf"
    

  • Restart the Apache server using the command-line tool.

    $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache
    

  You should now be able to access the demo application at http://SERVER-IP/demo. You should see a “Hello world” message in your browser.

• If your stack does not include a demo application, or if you prefer to create a custom PHP application from scratch, follow the steps below. These steps assume that your application will live in the /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/ directory:

  • Run the following commands to create the directories and assign the necessary permissions:

    $ sudo mkdir /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp
    $ sudo mkdir /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/
    $ sudo mkdir /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf
    $ sudo chown -R bitnami:daemon /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/
    $ sudo chmod -R g+w /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/
    

  • Create and edit the /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-prefix.conf file and add the line below to it:

    Alias /myapp/ "/opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/"
    Alias /myapp "/opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/"
    Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-app.conf"
    

  • Create and edit the /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-app.conf file and add the content below to it. This is the main configuration file for your application, so modify it further depending on your application’s requirements.

    <Directory /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/>
        Options +FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride None
        <IfVersion < 2.3 >
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
        </IfVersion>
        <IfVersion >= 2.3>
        Require all granted
        </IfVersion>
    </Directory>
    

    NOTE: If your application uses .htaccess files, you should change the AllowOverride None option to AllowOverride All. Find out how to move the .htaccess file content to the main server configuration file.

  • Once you have created the files and directories above, add the following line to the end of the main Apache configuration file at /opt/bitnami/apache2/conf/bitnami/bitnami-apps-prefix.conf, as shown below:

    Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-prefix.conf"
    

  • Restart the Apache server:

    $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache
    

  You should now be able to access the application at http://SERVER-IP/myapp.

  If you prefer to have the application available at the server root, perform these additional steps:

  • Edit the /opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-prefix.conf file and modify it so that it looks like this:

    DocumentRoot "/opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/htdocs/"
    Include "/opt/bitnami/apps/myapp/conf/httpd-app.conf"
    

  • Restart the Apache server:

    $ sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart apache
    

  You should now be able to access the application at http://SERVER-IP/.

Once you have created and deployed your custom PHP application, you can also proceed to create and integrate a MySQL/MariaDB database with your application.

Check out the following tutorial if you want to learn more about configuring a custom PHP application.