Andreas Gohr has posted a guide for creating a mobile Apache installation that could run on something like a USB stick.

Today I spent some time to figure out how to compile a relocatable Apache with PHP support. Yes, this might result in a Linux version of the DokuWiki on a Stick project. Read on for detailed instructions.

The installation is pretty similar to the normal compile with a few small differences. Check out the post for the complete process, commands and all.

Matthew Turland is looking to "save you some grief" by pointing out an issue he recently had trouble with and eventually found out was a bug in PHP.

It's pretty rare that I encounter a bug in the software I run that hampers my ability to work or my server environment's ability to function normally. However, I encountered one last week that has taken me and several Rackspace support technicians nearly a week to figure out, namely PHP bug #43677.

The issue was that PHP seemed to be "forgetting" the include_path in the current script (not Apache). The bug has been found in PHP 5.2.5 (and possible in all of the 5.2.x releases as well). The problem has been fixed in the latest CVS version and a patch has been created for those that want to correct the problem right away.

Vinu Thomas talks about a platform on his blog today that can be used to create PHP applications to live on a S60 phone.

If you'd like to work on your favorite PHP apps on your S60 phones, here's PAMP - Personal Apache, MySQL and PHP. This is implemented on the Symbian OS using Open C, which is a set of industry-standard POSIX and middleware C libraries for S60.

The PAMP system is pretty easy to install and guides can be found over on the dev.mobi website to help get you started. You can download the latest version of the project from its SourceForge website.

In a recent post to his blog, Brian Moon talks about the experience he's had with using PHP on Apache 2 with a threaded MPM at Dealnews.com.

Well, first, what is an MPM? It stands for Multi-Processing Module. [...] The most commonly used threaded MPM is the Worker MPM. In this MPM, you have several processes that run multiple threads within it. This is the one I will be talking about.

He goes on to describe the "huge memory savings" that using the module got them - using the worker process to increase the child capacity of the Apache instance. He recommends keeping it simple when compiling a server to work with the worker functionality and mentions how it can also help with serving static pages right along side the dynamic ones (without a second server!).

Check out the post for a few more tips.

In a new article on DevShed, the spotlight is on putting Apache "in jail" with chroot, but they also include a section on setting up PHP to work inside it.

In this conclusion to a six-part series on Apache configuration and installation, you will learn how to use chroot to put Apache in jail, how to prepare PHP to work in jail, and more.

The article is an excerpt from the O'Reilly book "Apache Security" and shows how to get PHP to cooperate by installing it normally and then setting up some shared libraries to be used in the jail. They note one common problem - an issue with PHP accessing sendmail - that can be solved easily with a change to php.ini for the setup.

Lukas Smith has posted some ominous thoughts about the future of the LAMP stack in the online development world - specifically asking if the popularity of the grouping could be what might ultimately cause its downfall.

The issue is that there is simply not enough top qualified talent that knows LAMP well enough to hire. Or maybe its just too hard to find them? It seems all the good guys are already hired. As a result companies end up looking for other technology, not because they actually believe that these technologies are any better or worth the license fees that these usually require to be paid up...

He suggests two things that could be possible lead-ins to the "demise" of LAMP - the fact that LAMP just isn't taught along side other languages in school and that, since PHP is only just now getting into the offices of the "major players", there hasn't been enough time to prove to them that PHP has worth in their business.

Be sure to check out some of the great comments on this one.

Dave Dash has posted a configuration that he had shared with him for getting nginx and the symfony framework to work happily together.

I almost gave up on nginx and was going to settle on lighttpd or Apache, but I decided to check the symfony list and in minutes Kiril Angov (Kupokomapa) answered with a working nginx configuration. This is why I like the symfony community.

He includes the config in an easy to use/c&p kind of format so you can drop it into your install and get it up and running quick.

From the DeveloperTutorials.com website today there's a new walk-through showing you how to get PHP5 installed with Apache and MySQL onto a linux machine of your choosing. They chose to go with SuSE, but it should work on just about anything else.

We will set up PHP as a shared module, being loaded into Apache2 dynamically during the server startup. These instructions are known to work for PHP versions: 5.0.4 through 5.2.1.

They list a few prerequisites (the obvious ones) and where to grab the source for PHP. The rest is broken up into a few simple (hopefully) steps for the unpacking, compiling, configuring and integration with Apache.