PHP settings

This topic discusses how to set required PHP options.

Verify PHP is installed

PHP is installed by default on most Linux distributions. This topic assumes that you have already installed PHP. To verify if PHP is installed, enter the following on the command line:

php -v

If PHP is installed, a message similar to the following displays:

PHP 8.1.2-1ubuntu2.14 (cli) (built: Aug 18 2023 11:41:11) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.1.2, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.1.2-1ubuntu2.14, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

If PHP is not installed (or requires an upgrade), install it by following the instructions for your Linux distribution.

Verify installed extensions

Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source require certain PHP extensions. The following lists specify required extensions for each edition of Commerce. The lists are autogenerated from a deployment running the latest version of each edition.

Adobe Commerce requires:

• ext-bcmath
• ext-ctype
• ext-curl
• ext-dom
• ext-fileinfo
• ext-filter
• ext-gd
• ext-hash
• ext-iconv
• ext-intl
• ext-json
• ext-libxml
• ext-mbstring
• ext-openssl
• ext-pcre
• ext-pdo_mysql
• ext-simplexml
• ext-soap
• ext-sockets
• ext-sodium
• ext-spl
• ext-tokenizer
• ext-xmlwriter
• ext-xsl
• ext-zip
• ext-zlib
• lib-libxml

B2B for Adobe Commerce requires:

• ext-bcmath
• ext-ctype
• ext-curl
• ext-dom
• ext-fileinfo
• ext-filter
• ext-gd
• ext-hash
• ext-iconv
• ext-intl
• ext-json
• ext-libxml
• ext-mbstring
• ext-openssl
• ext-pcre
• ext-pdo_mysql
• ext-simplexml
• ext-soap
• ext-sockets
• ext-sodium
• ext-spl
• ext-tokenizer
• ext-xmlwriter
• ext-xsl
• ext-zip
• ext-zlib
• lib-libxml

Magento Open Source requires:

• ext-bcmath
• ext-ctype
• ext-curl
• ext-dom
• ext-fileinfo
• ext-filter
• ext-gd
• ext-hash
• ext-iconv
• ext-intl
• ext-json
• ext-libxml
• ext-mbstring
• ext-openssl
• ext-pcre
• ext-pdo_mysql
• ext-simplexml
• ext-soap
• ext-sockets
• ext-sodium
• ext-tokenizer
• ext-xmlwriter
• ext-xsl
• ext-zip
• ext-zlib
• lib-libxml

To verify installed extensions:

1. List installed modules.

   php -m
   

2. Verify that all required extensions are installed.

3. Add any missing modules using the same workflow used for installing PHP.

Check PHP settings

• Set the system time zone for PHP; otherwise, errors like the following display during the installation and time-related operations like cron might not work:

PHP Warning:  date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. [more messages follow]

• Set the PHP memory limit.

  Adobe recommends the following:

  • Compiling code or deploying static assets, 1G
  • Debugging, 2G
  • Testing, ~3-4G

• Increase the values for the PHP realpath_cache_size and realpath_cache_ttl to recommended settings:

  realpath_cache_size=10M
  realpath_cache_ttl=7200
  

  These settings allow PHP processes to cache paths to files instead of looking them up on page load. See Performance Tuning in the PHP documentation.

• Enable opcache.save_comments, which is required for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source 2.1 and later.

  Adobe recommends enabling the PHP OPcache for performance reasons. The OPcache is enabled in many PHP distributions.

  Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source 2.1 and later use PHP code comments for code generation.

Find PHP configuration files

This section discusses how you find the configuration files necessary to update required settings.

Find php.ini configuration file

To find the web server configuration, run a phpinfo.php file in your web browser and look for the Loaded Configuration File as follows:

To locate the PHP command-line configuration, enter

php --ini | grep "Loaded Configuration File"

Find OPcache configuration settings

PHP OPcache settings are typically located either in php.ini or opcache.ini. The location might depend on your operating system and PHP version. The OPcache configuration file might have an opcache section or settings like opcache.enable.

Use the following guidelines to find it:

• Apache web server:

  For Ubuntu with Apache, OPcache settings are typically located in the php.ini file.

  For CentOS with Apache or nginx, OPcache settings are typically located in /etc/php.d/opcache.ini

  If not, use the following command to locate it:

  sudo find / -name 'opcache.ini'
  

• nginx web server with PHP-FPM: /etc/php/8.1/fpm/php.ini

If you have more than one opcache.ini, modify all of them.

How to set PHP options

To set PHP options:

1. Open a php.ini in a text editor.

2. Locate your server’s time zone in the available time zone settings

3. Locate the following setting and uncomment it if necessary:

   date.timezone =
   

4. Add the time zone setting that you found in step 2.

5. Change the value of memory_limit to one of the values recommended at the beginning of this section.

   For example,

   memory_limit=2G
   

6. Add or update the realpath_cache configuration to match the following values:

   ;
   ; Increase realpath cache size
   ;
   realpath_cache_size = 10M
   
   ;
   ; Increase realpath cache ttl
   ;
   realpath_cache_ttl = 7200
   

7. Save your changes and exit the text editor.

8. Open the other php.ini (if they are different) and make the same changes in it.

Set OPcache options

To set opcache.ini options:

1. Open your OPcache configuration file in a text editor:

   • opcache.ini (CentOS)
   • php.ini (Ubuntu)
   • /etc/php/8.1/fpm/php.ini (nginx web server (CentOS or Ubuntu))

2. Locate opcache.save_comments and uncomment it if necessary.

3. Make sure that its value is set to 1.

4. Save your changes and exit the text editor.

5. Restart your web server:

   • Apache, Ubuntu: service apache2 restart
   • Apache, CentOS: service httpd restart
   • nginx, Ubuntu and CentOS: service nginx restart

Troubleshooting

See the following Adobe Commerce Support articles for help with troubleshooting PHP problems:

• PHP version error or 404 error when accessing Adobe Commerce in a browser
• PHP settings errors
• PHP mcrypt extension not installed properly
• PHP version readiness check issues
• Common PHP Fatal Errors and solutions

Business.Adobe.com resources