Closed GoogleCodeExporter closed 9 years ago
GoogleCodeExporter
commented
9 years ago Hello,
phpVirtualBox requires PHP >= 5.2.0. If I recall correctly, some CentOS users
have said PHP >= 5.2.0 that comes with CentOS is compiled with --disable-json.
You will need a version >= 5.2.0 that is not compiled with the --disable-json
flag.Original comment by imooreya...@gmail.com on 13 Aug 2010 at 1:04
GoogleCodeExporter
commented
9 years ago Actually, CentOS (the latest version, 5.5), like it's Redhat Enterprise
upstream, does not even include PHP 5.2.0. PHP 5.1.6 is the included version.
This is by design, as RHEL/CentOS is meant to be a production class server OS,
with focus on stability above and beyond all else. It does not include bleeding
edge software, only well tested, proven stable software. That is why it's the
only OS I will run on any of my servers, as I have encountered far too many
issues with other distros to be willing to use them in a production environment.
It's really a shame that phpvirtualbox requires the absolute latest version of
PHP, as it looks like such a wonderfully useful administrative tool.
It is possible to install PHP 5.2.0 from the CentOS "testing" archive, but I
hate to do so on a production server. At least installing it from there does
not break the package management system as installing it from source would.
In any event, neither CentOS version (the official one, or the one in the
testing repo) includes the --disable-json flag, fwiw, per my included output
above.
I have gone ahead and installed PHP 5.2.0 on my test box. Now I no longer get
the "unknown PHP error" from phpvirtualbox, but instead I get "PHP does not
have the SOAP extension enabled." Which, not being a PHP guru, I guess I'll
need to go research and try to figure out how to install that. At least now
I'm getting an error that point me in the right direction, instead of one that
basically just says "an error has occurred." :-/
It's a shame that this is so difficult to install and get working on such a
common, stable, well-supported Linux distro. :-(
Original comment by jeffm23...@gmail.com on 14 Aug 2010 at 3:10
GoogleCodeExporter
commented
9 years ago Update: (1 minute later) well, ok, "yum install php-soap", that was simple
enough. Time to munch on crow. ;-)
Still annoying that this won't run on PHP 5.1.x though. :-(
Original comment by jeffm23...@gmail.com on 14 Aug 2010 at 3:13
GoogleCodeExporter
commented
9 years ago 5.2.0 was released in 2006 and is not the absolute latest version.
phpVirtualBox says "an unknown error occurred" because it is unable to
determine what went wrong as PHP prints no output when it encounters a fatal
error. You are welcome to submit a patch to change this behavior if you can
figure out a way around this.
The virtualbox-svn branch of phpVirtualBox does not require json enabled (added
to PHP in version 5.2.0), and so may not require php 5.2.0. I'll have to do
some more testing. This will be released when VirtualBox 3.3.0 is released.
The current version of phpVirtualBox is 0.5 beta. You are already running
"testing" software on your production server.
The SOAP error should have a wiki page, which I will create when I get a
chance. I will use your instructions for CentOS. Thank you.Original comment by imooreya...@gmail.com on 14 Aug 2010 at 1:03
GoogleCodeExporter
commented
9 years ago First off I apologize if I sounded ungrateful toward the phpvirtualbox
developers. I think it's a great piece of software and something much needed
to turn virtualbox in to a truly useful virtualization environment. Since
switching from vmware to virtualbox, the lack of a web based administrative
interface has been the one thing that I have very much missed. (Even though
vmware's web interface was a klunky, buggy, 900 pound elephant, at least it was
there.) Since I run all my servers headless, I've had to resort to using the
command line interface for everything with Virtul Box. While I realize the
command line interface is more powerful, it's also an order of magnitude less
convenient and more prone to making errors, for me anyway. I do appreciate the
efforts, I just get frustrated because I've been in the industry a long time ,
and sometimes it just seems to me like *nothing* works right any more. If
you've ever watched the videos of the "Angry Video Game Nerd", well... I'm kind
of like the Angry Network Admin. :-D I really am turning in to a grumpy old
man as I get older. :-)
So THANK YOU for developing phpvirtualbox, your efforts are GREATLY appreciated.
As for submitting a patch, I honestly don't consider myself an experienced
enough PHP programmer to submit a proper patch, but it seems to me that simply
renaming index.html to index.php and doing some basic dependency checks and
displaying an appropriate message would be adequate to point the new user in
the right direction. Here's a hopefully useful code snippit that seems to not
break anything with my installation now that I finally have it up and running:
<?php
$version = explode('.',phpversion());
$versionid = ($version[0] * 10000 + $version[1] * 100 + $version[2]);
if ($versionid < 50200) {
exit 'PHP version 5.2.0 or higher is required.<br>'; }
if (phpversion('json') == '') {
exit 'PHP must be compiled with json support and json must be enabled.<br>'; }
?>
This could certainly be expanded on to display a proper dialog box, and/or to
test for other dependancies, again I don't consider myself a master PHP coder,
but hopefully it helps.
As for "testing" software on my production server, to me there is a big
difference between running an administrative tool that is in beta, which will
only be used by me, and which presumably can not do anything worse than totally
bugger up my virtual box installation (the virtual servers running on my
production box do not provide a critical function in my network), vs.
installing an untested version of PHP from an untrusted source (PHP *is* used
for critical tasks including customer web sites on this box, and god know what
that could break or what problems or instability it could introduce.) That was
my point really.
Thanks again. I do finally have phpvirtualbox running on my test machine and
it's pretty slick. I'm not sure if I will run it on my production machine
because of the PHP requirement, but maybe some day when CentOS 6.x arrives I'll
be ready for it. :-)
Original comment by jeffm23...@gmail.com on 16 Aug 2010 at 3:27
Original issue reported on code.google.com by
jeffm23...@gmail.comon 13 Aug 2010 at 2:17Attachments: