Apache2 with PHP support in Yocto

I am using Yocto to create a build including apache2 but I have a hard time adding php support. I had it running previously (read: last year) but since then there have been changes to the meta-webserver layer in meta-openembedded. From the README file in meta-webserver:

"This layer used to provide a modphp recipe that built mod_php, but this is now built as part of the php recipe in meta-oe. However, since apache2 is required to build mod_php, and apache2 recipe is in this layer and recipes in meta-oe can't depend on it, mod_php is not built by default. If you do wish to use mod_php, you need to add "apache2" to the PACKAGECONFIG value for the php recipe in order to enable it."

I have added the following line to php in my own layer:

PACKAGECONFIG_append = " apache2"

But I get compilations error when it can't find what appears to be apache include files when compiling mod_php (I include only one error below, I get a similar error for ap_config.h as well):

In file included from /home/martin/Yocto/poky/rpi/tmp/work/x86_64-linux/php-native/5.6.12-r0/php-5.6.12/sapi/apache2handler/mod_php5.c:26:0: | /home/martin/Yocto/poky/rpi/tmp/work/x86_64-linux/php-native/5.6.12-r0/php-5.6.12/sapi/apache2handler/php_apache.h:24:19: fatal error: httpd.h: No such file or directory | compilation terminated.

Has anyone managed to compile apache2 with php support lately and can give some assistance on how to do it? Thanks!

Solution

With valued help from Armin Kuster I managed to solve my issue. Armin noticed that PACKAGECONFIG_append = " apache2" overrides the existing PACKAGECONFIG and sets "apache2" only. Based on his suggestion I changed my bbappend file to include the following:

DEPENDS = "apache2"
RDEPENDS_${PN} = "apache2"
PACKAGECONFIG = "sqlite3 apache2 ${@bb.utils.contains('DISTRO_FEATURES', 'pam', 'pam', '', d)}”

I don’t know if the DEPENDS and RDEPENDS are necessary any longer but they don’t seem to hurt.

I then realised that just adding 'php' to my layer.conf doesn't build the binaries like they did in the past. I had to explicitly specify php-cli and php-modphp. My layer.conf now includes this:

IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " apache2 php php-cli php-modphp"

With this the PHP recipe builds and includes both the php binary and the php apache module. However, the file /etc/apache/modules.d/70_mod_php5.conf does not load the PHP module since the PHP5 environment variable is not defined (see default file below). I didn't know where to specify the environment variable so instead I ended up overriding this file in my own layer and in my version I simply removed the IfDefine.

# vim: ft=apache sw=4 ts=4
<IfDefine PHP5>
        # Load the module first
        <IfModule !sapi_apache2.c>
                LoadModule php5_module    /usr/lib/apache2/modules/libphp5.so
        </IfModule>

        # Set it to handle the files
        AddHandler php5-script .php .phtml .php3 .php4 .php5
        AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
        DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php index.phtml
</IfDefine>

I hope that this can be of help to others with the same issue.