The concept:
- Create a different WSL2 distro for each off the PHP 8.0, 7.4, 7.3, 7.2, 7.1, 7.0 versions.
- Create an exta WSL2 distro that contains the shared data for those PHP distros.
C:\Users\herbert>wsl -l -v
NAME STATE VERSION
* data Running 2
php70 Running 2
php74 Running 2
php73 Running 2
php71 Running 2
php80 Running 2
php72 Running 2
There are 2 services running on the data distro, Mariadb and Memcached, Apache is running on every PHP distro, with the default WSL2 setup that every service is avalable under localhost (including the Windows host) that makes below services available everywhere.
data@data:/mnt/c/Users/herbert$ sudo netstat -plnt
Active Internet connections (only servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:3306 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 160/mariadbd
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:11211 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 235/memcached
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1070 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1071 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1072 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1073 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1074 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1080 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN -
This means you can use below URL's in the browser on your Windows host (the last 2 digits gives the PHP version that that WSL2 distro is using)
- http://localhost:1080
- http://localhost:1074
- http://localhost:1073
- http://localhost:1072
- http://localhost:1071
- http://localhost:1070
PHP is 6 times compiled from source (you have the time to drink a beer, or two, during install)
The compilation is done 6 times with the same ./configure command, it works, but I see some errors at older PHP versions. Until now I have only tested my stuff under PHP 8.0 and PHP 7.4
It's a ToDo to give every PHP version it's own ./configure statement.
I found out that if you have multiple WSL2 distros, it can sometimes be a bit confusing on wich one you are working. For this reason the hostname and the default user have the same name as the distro name. Most of the time you see at least one of those 3 on your screen.
Before installation you need to setup WSL2 on your Windows 10 host, see below page for this.
If you are new with WSL2, then below article is a great introduction to it
I have tested it with Debian Buster 10.5 and Ubuntu Focal 20.04, not from the Windows store but from below images.
You can set in settings.cmd which one you want to use.
If you put a file image.tar.gz file in the directory where %wsl% from settings.cmd points to, then that image will be used. Such a image can be created from an existing WSL distro like below.
wsl --export Debian d:\wsl\image.tar.gz
However, a own image.tar.gz file is a recipy to make the WSL2-PHPxx install script go bananas, it asumes it is working on a vanilla Debian 10 or Ubuntu 20.04 distribution.
With WSL2 cross mounts, the folowing locations from the data distro are also available on the PHP distros
- /app/
- /var/www/ If you make a change in those 2 locaties, you make it automatically available in all Distros
The same for Mariadb and Memcached, those two are running on the data distro, you can use those 2 services from every PHP distro.
Maybe the /var/www directory make you think Apache is installed on the data distro, thats not the case, Apache is only installed on the PHP distros.
Bad, use it only on your personal PC / Laptop. For example, the admin user data for MariaDB has no password, security wise, that could be better. For this reason all servers are only binded to port 127.0.0.1, only you on your own laptop can acces it.
Default a small PHP app is installed under /app on the data distro, you can find the sources of it at below file.
https://github.com/Herbert256/wsl2-phpxx_demo-app
This Demo App makes the /var/www/html directory a symbolic link to /app/www.
Still here? Then it's time to install it !
- Set the variables in the script
settings.cmd - Run the script
install.cmd - Wait ... wait ...
Make sure you give the first variable %wsl% in settings.cmd the right value. The diskspace needed at that location is 8 GB when you use Debian as base and 12 GB if you use Ubuntu as base.
It can take some time, compiling 6 PHP versions from source takes time.
Problems during install? The installation script has no error handling, if one of the first steps fails, then all other steps after it will also fail. There is extensive logging, you have to do some digging in %wsl%\log\ if it does not work.
It's nuts, a Docker solution would be much more elegant, but it is was fun to setup it myself, and I learned how WSL2 works.