Including several PHP versions in Apache, switchable via AddHandler directive

Question

A shared web host I'm using is offering several versions of PHP on the same server: 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4. They make it possible to switch between these versions by naming the file extensions .php54 and .php53 respectively, or via an .htaccess directive:

AddHandler php5.4-script .php

I have not been able to completely figure out how their Apache server is configured to support this though. Everything I found seemed to say that only one mod_php can be compiled into Apache at a time. Would this suggest that php5.4-script is some sort of custom wrapper module? Or are there obscure ways in which different PHP modules can be compiled under different handler names?

Answer 1

According to the resource I've found after researching on this topic, it is as you already thought a (Fast) CGI wrapper which allows you to change the PHP version used via e.g. .htaccess .

How to achieve this is explained thoroughly here: http://linuxplayer.org/2011/05/intall-multiple-version-of-php-on-one-server .

In case the site is not reachable, here I'm going to list the steps:

1. Install required dev packages
2. Compile and install
3. Create a fastcgi wrapper script
   • Build and install e.g. php-5.3 with fpm enabled
   • Configure php-fpm
   • Start fpm
   • Install and setup mod_fastcgi, mod_fcgid
4. Update the Apache config file
5. Restart Apache