PHP on Google App Engine

Blank PHP Google App for simple demonstration and deployment test.

PHP on Google App Engine Even after several years of public requests for opening App Engine ports for PHP programmers Google hasn't done much for it. But as well as Ruby is working on App Engine with Java, so is PHP possible using Caucho's Quercus Java implementation. Combining AppEngine and Quercus is little tricky at the moment. Information is spread all over the net and often is not using the latest packages. Thats why you may find next easy steps welcome.

Components needed

• Java Development Kit (1.6)
• Google Application Engine Software Development Kit (1.5.5)
• Quercus & Resin Java-PHP5 bridge by Caucho (4.0.18)

You can get all components on package separately by collecting them around the web, but if you want easy way, I recommend downloading custom installation package for hassle free deployment: http://budurl.com/phpongoogleappengine.

NOTE: If you get package from GitHub, then you need to get Google App Engine SDK for Java separately from: http://code.google.com/intl/fi-FI/appengine/downloads.html and extract it to project root. At the moment of writing its version 1.5.5 and in future you might need to change run and deployments paths on below.

Configure & Deploy

1. Create your application on Google: http://appengine.google.com/. Take the name of the application for the next steps.

2. Get PHP on Google App Engine http://budurl.com/phpongoogleappengine and upzip if you didn't already

3. Open ./war/appengine-web.xml file from unzipped directory and edit 3rd line:

   <application>my-application-id</application>

to contain your application id.

4. Open console and go to the unzipped directory called "blankapp":

   cd /path/to/blankapp/

5. Run the deployment code for mac/linux:

   sh ./appengine-java-sdk-1.5.5/bin/appcfg.sh --enable_jar_splitting update ./war

   or run the deployment code for windows:

   ./appengine-java-sdk-1.5.5/bin/appcfg.cmd --enable_jar_splitting update ./war

6. Give your Google account username and password.

7. Point your browser to your application root:

   http://my-application-id.appspot.com/

And that's it! See working example from: http://blankapp.appspot.com and notice the content of phpinfo() as an evidence of successful operation. Of course now you want to create the greatest PHP application on planet using scaleable, robust and secure Google clouds. Please not that there are some major and lots of minor restriction on Google platform you cannot do. You probably need to test & test & test to know all the small quirks, but hey, that is programmer's life! Happy learning and coding!

Package originally distributed on: http://php-apps.appspot.com/