Overview

This directory contains source code for PHP implementation of gRPC layered on shared C library. The same installation guides with more examples and tutorials can be seen at grpc.io. gRPC PHP installation instructions for Google Cloud Platform is in cloud.google.com.

Environment

Prerequisite:

  • php 5.5 or above, 7.0 or above
  • pecl
  • composer
  • phpunit (optional)

Install PHP and PECL on Ubuntu/Debian:

For PHP5:

$ sudo apt-get install php5 php5-dev php-pear phpunit

For PHP7:

$ sudo apt-get install php7.0 php7.0-dev php-pear phpunit

or

$ sudo apt-get install php php-dev php-pear phpunit

Install PHP and PECL on CentOS/RHEL 7:

$ sudo rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
$ sudo rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm
$ sudo yum install php56w php56w-devel php-pear phpunit gcc zlib-devel

Install PHP and PECL on Mac:

$ brew install homebrew/php/php56-grpc
$ curl -O http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar
$ sudo php -d detect_unicode=0 go-pear.phar

Install Composer (Linux or Mac):

$ curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
$ sudo mv composer.phar /usr/local/bin/composer

Install PHPUnit (Linux or Mac):

$ wget https://phar.phpunit.de/phpunit-old.phar
$ chmod +x phpunit-old.phar
$ sudo mv phpunit-old.phar /usr/bin/phpunit

Install the gRPC PHP extension

There are two ways to install gRPC PHP extension.

  • pecl
  • build from source

Using PECL

sudo pecl install grpc

or specific version

sudo pecl install grpc-1.12.0

Note: for users on CentOS/RHEL 6, unfortunately this step won’t work. Please follow the instructions below to compile the PECL extension from source.

Install on Windows

You can download the pre-compiled gRPC extension from the PECL website

Build from Source with gRPC C core library

Clone this repository

$ git clone -b $(curl -L https://grpc.io/release) https://github.com/grpc/grpc

Build and install the gRPC C core library

$ cd grpc
$ git submodule update --init
$ make
$ sudo make install

Build and install gRPC PHP extension

Compile the gRPC PHP extension

$ cd grpc/src/php/ext/grpc
$ phpize
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

This will compile and install the gRPC PHP extension into the standard PHP extension directory. You should be able to run the unit tests, with the PHP extension installed.

Update php.ini

After installing the gRPC extension, make sure you add this line to your php.ini file, (e.g. /etc/php5/cli/php.ini, /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini, or /usr/local/etc/php/5.6/php.ini), depending on where your PHP installation is.

extension=grpc.so

Add the gRPC PHP library as a Composer dependency

You need to add this to your project's composer.json file.

  "require": {
    "grpc/grpc": "v1.12.0"
  }

To run tests with generated stub code from .proto files, you will also need the composer and protoc binaries. You can find out how to get these below.

Install other prerequisites for both Mac OS X and Linux

  • protoc: protobuf compiler
  • protobuf.so: protobuf runtime library
  • grpc_php_plugin: Generates PHP gRPC service interface out of Protobuf IDL

Install Protobuf compiler

If you don't have it already, you need to install the protobuf compiler protoc, version 3.5.0+ (the newer the better) for the current gRPC version. If you installed already, make the protobuf version is compatible to the grpc version you installed. If you build grpc.so from the souce, you can check the version of grpc inside package.xml file.

The compatibility between the grpc and protobuf version is listed as table below:

grpcprotobuf
v1.0.03.0.0(GA)
v1.0.13.0.2
v1.1.03.1.0
v1.2.03.2.0
v1.2.03.2.0
v1.3.43.3.0
v1.3.53.2.0
v1.4.03.3.0
v1.6.03.4.0
v1.8.03.5.0
v1.12.03.5.2

If protoc hasn't been installed, you can download the protoc binaries from the protocol buffers Github repository. Then unzip this file and update the environment variable PATH to include the path to the protoc binary file.

If you really must compile protoc from source, you can run the following commands, but this is risky because there is no easy way to uninstall / upgrade to a newer release.

$ cd grpc/third_party/protobuf
$ ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make
$ sudo make install

Protobuf Runtime library

There are two protobuf runtime libraries to choose from. They are identical in terms of APIs offered. The C implementation provides better performance, while the native implementation is easier to install. Make sure the installed protobuf version works with grpc version.

1. C implementation (for better performance)

$ sudo pecl install protobuf

or specific version

$ sudo pecl install protobuf-3.5.1.1

Add this to your php.ini file:

extension=protobuf.so

2. PHP implementation (for easier installation)

Add this to your composer.json file:

  "require": {
    "google/protobuf": "^v3.5.0"
  }

PHP Protoc Plugin

You need the gRPC PHP protoc plugin to generate the client stub classes. It can generate server and client code from .proto service definitions.

It should already been compiled when you run make from the root directory of this repo. The plugin can be found in the bins/opt directory. We are planning to provide a better way to download and install the plugin in the future.

You can also just build the gRPC PHP protoc plugin by running:

$ git clone -b $(curl -L https://grpc.io/release) https://github.com/grpc/grpc
$ cd grpc
$ git submodule update --init
$ make grpc_php_plugin

Plugin may use the new feature of the new protobuf version, thus please also make sure that the protobuf version installed is compatible with the grpc version you build this plugin.

Unit Tests

You will need the source code to run tests

$ git clone -b $(curl -L https://grpc.io/release) https://github.com/grpc/grpc
$ cd grpc
$ git submodule update --init

Run unit tests

$ cd grpc/src/php
$ ./bin/run_tests.sh

Generated Code Tests

This section specifies the prerequisites for running the generated code tests, as well as how to run the tests themselves.

Composer

Install the runtime dependencies via composer install.

$ cd grpc/src/php
$ composer install

Client Stub

Generate client stub classes from .proto files

$ cd grpc/src/php
$ ./bin/generate_proto_php.sh

Run test server

Run a local server serving the math services. Please see Node for how to run an example server.

$ cd grpc
$ npm install
$ node src/node/test/math/math_server.js

Run test client

Run the generated code tests

$ cd grpc/src/php
$ ./bin/run_gen_code_test.sh

Use the gRPC PHP extension with Apache

Install apache2, in addition to php5 above

$ sudo apt-get install apache2

Add this line to your php.ini file, e.g. /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini or /etc/php/7.0/apache2/php.ini

extension=grpc.so

Restart apache

$ sudo service apache2 restart

Make sure the Node math server is still running, as above.

$ cd grpc
$ npm install
$ node src/node/test/math/math_server.js

Make sure you have run composer install to generate the vendor/autoload.php file

$ cd grpc/src/php
$ composer install

Make sure you have generated the client stubs

$ ./bin/generate_proto_php.sh

Copy the math_client.php file into your Apache document root, e.g.

$ cp tests/generated_code/math_client.php /var/www/html

You may have to fix the first line to point the includes to your installation:

include 'vendor/autoload.php';

Connect to localhost/math_client.php in your browser, or run this from command line:

$ curl localhost/math_client.php

Use the gRPC PHP extension with Nginx/PHP-FPM

Install nginx and php5-fpm, in addition to php5 above

$ sudo apt-get install nginx php5-fpm

OR

$ sudo apt-get install nginx php7.0-fpm

Add this line to your php.ini file, e.g. /etc/php5/fpm/php.ini

extension=grpc.so

Uncomment the following lines in your /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file:

location ~ \.php$ {
    include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
}

Restart nginx and php-fpm

$ sudo service nginx restart
$ sudo service php5-fpm restart

Make sure the Node math server is still running, as above.

$ cd grpc
$ npm install
$ node src/node/test/math/math_server.js

Make sure you have run composer install to generate the vendor/autoload.php file

$ cd grpc/src/php
$ composer install

Make sure you have generated the client stubs

$ ./bin/generate_proto_php.sh

Copy the math_client.php file into your Nginx document root, e.g.

$ cp tests/generated_code/math_client.php /var/www/html

You may have to fix the first line to point the includes to your installation:

include 'vendor/autoload.php';

Connect to localhost/math_client.php in your browser, or run this from command line:

$ curl localhost/math_client.php