New PHP-focused Yum Repository

PHP 5.3 is now yum-installable.

Ever been frustrated that the latest this-or-that package for PHP is bogged down in Big Distro Packaging politics? I have been. That's why I've put together a deliberately-current-as-possible repository for PHP RPMs.

The repository is currently i386-only, though I'll be adding x86_64 packages within the next week or so. Also, "regular" and "debug" builds are available for all packages, so that users may be more helpful in troubleshooting what issues they find.

The current list of packages, as well as all the RPM spec files for building them and information on how to set up the repository for use on your CentOS5/RHEL5 servers is available at the killersoft-yum Google Code site.

Have fun!

Update: I forgot to mention one of the things I think is interesting about the way I've packaged the PHP modules in the repository. Each supported SAPI -- apache2handler (mod_php), fastcgi and cli -- each have their own configuration paths and php.ini files.

/etc/php.mod.d/php.ini

/etc/php.cgi.d/php.ini

/etc/php.cli.d/php.ini

Within each directory, a subdirectory for per-extension config is present.

If you don't like this setup, no problem: just symlink them all together and you won't know the difference. However, I think it's convenient to be able to easily specify extensions that you want to use in mod_php that you don't want to use in the PHP CLI, and vice versa. If you need an ultralight PHP CLI for some reason, you can have it without having to hobble mod_php that's running on your website.