Skip to content

PHP (binary only)

"PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is
especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML."

Available Binaries

The package provides:

Binary Location Size Description
php /usr/bin/php ~18 MB PHP CLI (Command Line Interface)
php-cgi /usr/bin/php-cgi ~18 MB PHP CGI for web servers
php-fpm /usr/sbin/php-fpm ~18 MB PHP FastCGI Process Manager

All binaries are stripped and dynamically linked against uClibc.

Configuration Files

  • /etc/default.php/php.cfg - Freetz-NG package configuration
  • /etc/default.php/php.ini - PHP runtime configuration
  • /etc/default.php/php_config.def - Default configuration template
  • /etc/init.d/rc.php - Init script

Available Extensions

The package includes the following compiled-in extensions: Core, curl, dom, fileinfo, ftp, hash, iconv, json, libxml, mbstring, opcache, pcre, pdo, session, simplexml, sockets, spl, sqlite3, standard, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, zlib

Core Extensions

  • Core - PHP core functionality
  • date - Date and time functions
  • pcre - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE2)
  • reflection - Reflection API
  • spl - Standard PHP Library
  • standard - Standard PHP functions

String & Data Processing

  • ctype - Character type checking
  • filter - Data filtering and validation
  • hash - Hashing functions (MD5, SHA, etc.)
  • iconv - Character set conversion (GNU libiconv)
  • json - JSON encoding/decoding
  • mbstring - Multi-byte string functions

XML Processing

  • libxml - libXML2 support with HTML5 parser
  • dom - DOM XML manipulation with RelaxNG support
  • simplexml - SimpleXML interface
  • xml - XML parser
  • xmlreader - XMLReader streaming parser
  • xmlwriter - XMLWriter streaming writer

Web & Network

  • curl - Client URL library
  • ftp - FTP protocol support
  • session - Session handling
  • sockets - Low-level socket functions

Database

  • pdo - PHP Data Objects (PDO)
  • pdo_sqlite - PDO driver for SQLite 3.x
  • sqlite3 - SQLite3 extension

File & System

  • fileinfo - File information (magic number detection)
  • posix - POSIX functions
  • exif - EXIF image metadata

Process Control

  • pcntl - Process Control functions
  • sysvsem - System V semaphores
  • sysvshm - System V shared memory
  • sysvmsg - System V message queues

Performance

  • opcache - Zend OPcache for bytecode caching
  • zlib - Compression functions

Other

  • random - Random number generation (CSPRNG)
  • tokenizer - PHP tokenizer

Configuration Options

When building PHP, you can enable/disable the following options via make menuconfig:

Binary Selection

  • CLI - Command-line interpreter (php)
  • CGI - CGI binary (php-cgi)
  • FPM - FastCGI Process Manager (php-fpm)

Extension Options

  • CURL - Enables HTTP/HTTPS/FTP client functionality (libcurl.so.4)
  • EXIF - Enable EXIF support
  • FILEINFO - Enable file information support
  • FILTER - Enable filter extension
  • FTP - Enable FTP support
  • GD - Enables image manipulation and creation (libgd.so.3, requires libpng, libjpeg, libfreetype)
  • GETTEXT - Enables internationalization and localization (libintl.so.8)
  • ICONV - Enables character set conversion (uses uClibc built-in or libiconv.so.2)
  • LIBICONV - Use GNU libiconv instead of uClibc iconv
  • LIBXML - Enables XML parsing and manipulation (libxml2.so.16, required for DOM, SimpleXML, etc.)
  • MBSTRING - Enables multi-byte string functions (libonig.so.5 for regex support)
  • MYSQLI - Enables MySQL/MariaDB database access (libmysqlclient.so or libmariadb.so)
  • OPCACHE - Enable OPcache bytecode cache
  • OPENSSL - Enables cryptography and SSL/TLS (libssl.so.3, libcrypto.so.3)
  • PCNTL - Enable process control functions
  • PDO - Enable PHP Data Objects
  • PDO_SQLITE - Enables SQLite database access via PDO (libsqlite3.so.3)
  • SESSION - Enable session handling
  • SIMPLEXML - Enables simplified XML parsing (requires libxml2.so.16)
  • SOCKETS - Enable socket functions
  • SQLITE3 - Enables SQLite3 database access (libsqlite3.so.3)
  • SYSVIPC - Enable System V IPC support (semaphores, shared memory, messages)
  • TOKENIZER - Enable tokenizer
  • ZLIB - Enables zlib compression/decompression (libz.so.1)
  • ZIP - Enables ZIP archive handling (built-in with zlib support)

Build Notes

Library Dependencies

PHP 8.4.1 has the following library dependencies:

Core Libraries (always required):
- libxml2.so.16 - XML parsing (with HTML5 support)
- libpcre2-8.so - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
- libonig.so.5 - Oniguruma regex library (for mbstring)
- libintl.so.8 - Gettext internationalization
- libz.so.1 - Zlib compression ⚠️ Warning: Required by Dropbear SSH. If externalized, Dropbear must be added to /mod/etc/external.pkg to prevent boot issues.

Optional Libraries (enabled via menuconfig):
- libcurl.so.4 - HTTP/HTTPS/FTP client (CURL extension)
- libgd.so.3 - Image manipulation (GD extension)
- Requires: libpng.so, libjpeg.so, libfreetype.so
- libiconv.so.2 - Character set conversion (ICONV extension, alternative to uClibc)
- libsqlite3.so.3 - SQLite database (SQLite3 and PDO_SQLITE extensions)
- libssl.so.3 & libcrypto.so.3 - Cryptography and SSL/TLS (OpenSSL extension)
- libmysqlclient.so or libmariadb.so - MySQL/MariaDB (MySQLi extension)

All libraries can be externalized to save space in the main firmware image. See the "External processing" section in make menuconfig.

libxml2 Dependency

PHP 8.4.1 requires a full-featured libxml2 build with the following changes:

  1. HTML5 Parser Support: The FREETZ_LIB_libxml2_WITH_HTML option is automatically selected when PHP is enabled.

  2. RelaxNG Support: The libxml2 package has been rebuilt with --with-minimum=no instead of --with-minimum=yes to enable:

  3. RelaxNG validation (xmlRelaxNGValidateDoc)
  4. Schema validation support
  5. Full XML feature set

This increases libxml2 size slightly but provides full XML/HTML processing capabilities required by PHP 8.4's DOM extension.

GNU libiconv

When using the LIBICONV option, the package depends on GNU libiconv for character conversion instead of uClibc's built-in iconv. This provides better compatibility and more character set support.

External Processing

PHP and its dependency libraries can be externalized to save flash space (approximately 20-25 MB for binaries + 4 MB for libraries).

Configuration: make menuconfig → Advanced options → External processing → External files → php

Build Information

  • Toolchain: GCC 13.4.0
  • C Library: uClibc 1.0.55 (NPTL)
  • Interpreter: /usr/lib/freetz/ld-uClibc.so.1
  • Linking: Dynamic (requires shared libraries)