Installation

Configuring PHP with OCI8

Review the previous Requirements section before configuring OCI8.

Before starting the web server, OCI8 typically requires several Oracle environment variables (see below) to locate libraries, point to configuration files, and set some basic properties such as the character set used by Oracle libraries. The variables must be set before any PHP process starts.

The PHP binary must link with the same, or more recent, major version of Oracle libraries as it was configured with. For example, if you build OCI8 with Oracle 19 libraries, then PHP should also be deployed and run with Oracle 19 libraries. PHP applications can connect to other versions of Oracle Database, since Oracle has client-server cross-version compatibility.

Installing OCI8 from PECL Using the pecl Command

The OCI8 extension can be added to an existing PHP installation by using the » PECL repository.

  • If you are behind a firewall, set PEAR's proxy, for example:

    pear config-set http_proxy http://my-proxy.example.com:80/
    

  • Run

    pecl install oci8
    

    For PHP 7, use pecl install oci8-2.2.0

  • When prompted, enter either the value of $ORACLE_HOME, or instantclient,/path/to/instant/client/lib.

    Note: Do not enter variable names like $ORACLE_HOME or $HOME because pecl will not expand them. Instead, enter an expanded path, for example /opt/oracle/product/19c/dbhome_1 or instantclient,/Users/myname/Downloads/instantclient_19_8

  • If you get an error oci8_dtrace_gen.h: No such file or directory, it means PHP was built with DTrace Dynamic Tracing enabled. Install using:

    $ export PHP_DTRACE=yes
    $ pecl install oci8
    

  • Edit your php.ini file and add the line:

    extension=oci8.so
    

    Make sure the php.ini directive extension_dir is set to the directory that oci8.so was installed in.

Installing OCI8 from PECL Using phpize

To install OCI8 on an existing PHP installation when the pecl command is not available, manually download the » PECL OCI8 package, e.g. oci8-3.0.0.tgz.

  • Extract the package:

    tar -zxf oci8-3.0.0.tgz
    cd oci8-3.0.0
    

  • Prepare the package:

    phpize
    

  • Configure the package, either using $ORACLE_HOME or Instant Client

    ./configure -with-oci8=shared,$ORACLE_HOME
    

    or

    ./configure -with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/path/to/instant/client/lib
    

  • Install the package:

    make install
    

  • If you get an error oci8_dtrace_gen.h: No such file or directory, it means PHP was built with DTrace Dynamic Tracing enabled. Re-run the configure and make commands after setting this environment variable:

    $ export PHP_DTRACE=yes
    

  • Edit your php.ini file and add the line:

    extension=oci8.so
    

    Make sure the php.ini directive extension_dir is set to the directory that oci8.so was installed in.

Installing OCI8 as a Shared Extension when Building PHP

If you are building PHP from source code, the configuration shared option can be used to build OCI8 as a shared library that can be dynamically loaded into PHP. Building a shared extension allows OCI8 to be upgraded easily without impacting the rest of PHP.

Configure OCI8 using one of the following configure options.

  • If using the free » Oracle Instant Client libraries, then do:

    ./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/path/to/instant/client/lib
    

    If Instant Client 12.2 (or earlier) is installed from ZIP files, make sure to create the library symbolic link first, for example ln -s libclntsh.so.12.1 libclntsh.so.

    If using an RPM-based installation of Oracle Instant Client, the configure line will look like this:

    ./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/<version>/client/lib
    

    For example, --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/19.9/client/lib

  • If using an Oracle database or full Oracle Client installation then do:

    ./configure --with-oci8=shared,$ORACLE_HOME
    

    Make sure the web server user (nobody, www) has access to the libraries, initialization files and tnsnames.ora (if used) under the $ORACLE_HOME directory. With Oracle 10gR2, you may need to run the $ORACLE_HOME/install/changePerm.sh utility to give directory access.

After configuration, follow the usual PHP building procedure, e.g. make install. The OCI8 shared extension oci8.so library will be created. It may need to be manually moved to the PHP extension directory, specified by the extension_dir option in your php.ini file.

To complete installation of OCI8, edit php.ini and add the line:

extension=oci8.so

Installing OCI8 as a Statically Compiled Extension when Building PHP

If you are building PHP from source code, you can configure PHP to include OCI8 as a static extension using one of the following configure options.

  • If using Oracle Instant Client, then do:

    ./configure --with-oci8=instantclient,/path/to/instant/client/lib
    

  • If using an Oracle database or full Oracle Client installation then do:

    ./configure --with-oci8=$ORACLE_HOME
    

After configuration, follow the usual PHP building procedure, e.g. make install. After successful compilation, you do not need to add oci8.so to php.ini. No additional build steps are required.

Installing OCI8 on Windows

The OCI8 extension can be added to an existing PHP installation by using the DLLs from » PECL repository or the libraries in your PHP installation's ext directory.

With Oracle 12c (or later) libraries, uncomment one of the php.ini lines extension=php_oci8_12c.dll or extension=php_oci8_11g.dll or extension=php_oci8.dll. Only one of these DLLs may be enabled at a time. DLLs with higher versions may contain more functionality. Not all DLLs may be available for all versions of PHP. Make sure extension_dir is set to the directory containing the PHP extension DLLs.

If using Instant Client, set the system PATH environment variable to the Oracle library directory.

Setting the Oracle Environment

Before using this extension, make sure that the Oracle environment variables are properly set for the web daemon user. If your web server is automatically started at boot time then make sure that the boot-time environment is also configured correctly.

Note:

Do not set Oracle environment variables using putenv() in a PHP script because Oracle libraries may be loaded and initialized before your script runs. Variables set with putenv() may then cause conflicts, crashes, or unpredictable behavior. Some functions may work but others might give subtle errors. The variables should be set up before the web server is started.

On Red Hat Linux and variants, export variables at the end of /etc/sysconfig/httpd. Other systems with Apache 2 may use an envvars script in the Apache bin directory. A third option, the Apache SetEnv directive in httpd.conf, may work in some systems but is known to be insufficient in others.

To check that environment variables are set correctly, use phpinfo() and check the Environment (not the Apache Environment) section contains the expected variables.

The variables that might be needed are included in the following table. Refer to the Oracle documentation for more information on all the available variables.

Common Oracle Environment Variables
Name Purpose
ORACLE_HOME Contains the directory of the full Oracle Database software. Do not set this when using Oracle Instant Client as it is unnecessary and may cause installation problems.
ORACLE_SID Contains the name of the database on the local machine to be connected to. There is no need to set this if you using Oracle Instant Client, or always pass the connection parameter to oci_connect().
LD_LIBRARY_PATH Set this (or its platform equivalent, such as LIBPATH, or SHLIB_PATH) to the location of the Oracle libraries, for example $ORACLE_HOME/lib or /usr/lib/oracle/18.5/client/lib. Note with Instant Client ZIP files on Linux it is more reliable to use ldconfig instead, see the Instant Client installation instructions. With Instant Client 19 (or later) RPM files, ldconfig is automatically run for you. Some users use LD_PRELOAD instead of LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
NLS_LANG This is the primary variable for setting the character set and globalization information used by the Oracle libraries.
ORA_SDTZ Sets the Oracle session timezone.
TNS_ADMIN Contains the directory where the Oracle Net Services configuration files such as tnsnames.ora and sqlnet.ora are kept. Not needed if the oci_connect() connection string uses the Easy Connect naming syntax such as localhost/XE. Not needed if the network configuration files are in one of the default locations such as /usr/lib/oracle/VERSION/client/lib/network/admin, $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin or /etc.
Less frequently used Oracle environment variables include TWO_TASK, ORA_TZFILE, and the various Oracle globalization settings like NLS* and the ORA_NLS_* variables.

Troubleshooting

The most common problem with installing OCI8 is not having the Oracle environment correctly set. This typically appears as a problem using oci_connect() or oci_pconnect(). The error may be a PHP error such as Call to undefined function oci_connect(), an Oracle error such as ORA-12705, or even an Apache crash. Check the Apache log files for startup errors and see the sections above to resolve this problem.

While network errors like ORA-12154 or ORA-12514 indicate an Oracle network naming or configuration issue, the root cause may be because the PHP environment is incorrectly set up and Oracle libraries are unable to locate the tnsnames.ora configuration file.

On Windows, having multiple versions of Oracle on the one machine can easily cause library clashes unless care is taken to make sure PHP only uses the correct version of Oracle.

A utility to examine what libraries are being looked for and loaded can help resolve missing or clashing library issues, particularly on Windows.

Note: If the web server doesn't start or crashes at startup

Check that Apache is linked with the pthread library:

# ldd /www/apache/bin/httpd
  libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x4001c000)
  libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4002f000)
  libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x4004c000)
  libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4007a000)
  libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4007e000)
  /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

If the libpthread is not listed, then reinstall Apache:

# cd /usr/src/apache_1.3.xx
# make clean
# LIBS=-lpthread ./config.status
# make
# make install

Please note that on some systems like UnixWare, it is libthread instead of libpthread. PHP and Apache have to be configured with EXTRA_LIBS=-lthread.

add a note add a note

User Contributed Notes 36 notes

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25
alvaro at demogracia dot com
16 years ago
If you've followed the instructions and you can't even connect to the DB server, welcome to the Oracle hell. Most of the information you'll find is deprecated, incomplete, not for your platform, unnecessary or just plain wrong.

Typically, you won't need at all those complicate setups you'll read about and they'll probably make things harder. I suggest you get Systernal's "Filemon" utility (for Windows, in Unix you may do with strace) and find out what exact config files and DLLs are being tried by php.exe (or httpd.exe if PHP runs as Apache module or...). Pretty often, the issue is that (e.g.) TNSNAMES.ORA does not have the correct line ending or Apache is looking for a DLL that does not even exist in your hard disc; learning that prevents you to waste time adding more and more useless environmental variables.

Goog luck.
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3
devolver at iastate dot edu
22 years ago
I spent several hours tracking down error ORA 24374, which would result from only *SOME* of my select statements.  This error would be caused if I made a query that would return any non-numerical value.  I am running an Apache 1.3.x webserver and PHP 4.2.1.

The fix is to add entries in your httpd.conf file that would export your environment settings.  I added these three lines and everything worked like a charm!
SetEnv ORACLE_HOME  /path/to/oracle/home
SetEnv ORA_NLS33  /path/to/oracle/home/ocommon/nls/admin/data
SetEnv NLS_LANG AMERICAN

Obviously, if your NLS_LANG is different, you should set it to whatever your NLS_LANG actually is.  Ask your friendly DB admin for this information.

Hope this helps someone who treads down the path that I just followed!

Trent
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2
Anonymous
18 years ago
# here's what it took to get it going for me on rhel4 on x86_64 w/ 10gr2 and php5.0.5
# hopefully this will save someone a little grief
# first you must install the 10.2 full client in /app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
# follow all the instructions. This part will be a bitch.

# install the instantclient basic and sdk like this
mkdir -p /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib instantclient-basic-linux-x86-64-10.2.0.2-20060228.zip
mkdir -p /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client instantclient-sdk-linux-x86-64-10.2.0.2-20060228.zip
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib/libclntsh.so.10.1 /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib/libclntsh.so

# make the full client use instantclient's files
cd /app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
mv lib oldlib
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib lib
ln -s /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client include

php configure line is: --with-oci8=/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/
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3
f dot kheiri at ucl dot ac dot uk
18 years ago
To compile PHP 4.4.2 with OCI8 / Oracle 9i / AIX 5.2 (64-bit) / GCC

PHP will automatically compile against the Oracle 64-bit libraries, which PHP being a 32-bit app, will cause "make" to fail (though it will configure fine). Here's how to avoid this:

1. replace your PHP's ext/oci8 directory with the latest ext/oci8 directory downloadable from PECL - then remove the old directory entirely

2. rebuild configure by running:

./buildconf --force

...in PHP's root directory. This will rebuild the configure script.

3. using a tool like sed, in your configure file replace all instances of /path/to/oracle/lib with /path/to/oracle/lib32 - note, this may require GNU's autoconf, m4 and gnumake.

4. export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/oracle/lib32

5. ./configure --with-oci-8=/path/to/oracle (and any other options)

Then, the usual make and make install.
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1
ben at onshop dot co dot uk
19 years ago
I spent ages trying work out why I was getting the following message when when using ocilogon() on Windows 2000 using PHP 4 and 5:

ORA-03106 Fatal two-task communication protocol error

This problem is occurs when PHP cannot find ORACLE client environmental variables.

The environmental variables can be set in several ways:

1. Within the root 'Directory' directive on Apache httpd.conf:

<Directory "d:/path/to/webroot">
  SetEnv ORACLE_BASE "c:/oracle"
  SetEnv ORACLE_HOME "c:/oracle/ora81"
  SetEnv NLS_LANG "american_america.WE8DEC"
  SetEnv NLS_CHARACTERSET "WE8DEC"
  SetEnv NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET "AL16UTF16"
</Directory>

or

2. Within Windows:

Go to the Control Panel>System>Advanced>Environmental Variables

Then enter a name value/pair for each of the variables.

3. Using putenv() statements in the PHP file prior to using ocilogon(). This is not ideal because the statements are required evertime you wish to connect to Oracle.
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1
neogodo at yahoo dot com dot br
20 years ago
Hey guys!!!!

I have all these problems and when are solved a php show this:

_oci_server ORA-12159:connection text especified is too long

It's simple!!!

  In the TNSNAMES.ORA remove all space, tab, carriage return on the conection string and, wallah!!! All work fine!!!

  More info:

   PHP 5.0.0  with Oci8
   Apache 1.3

Regards,
Romolo (neogodo@yahoo.com.br).
DBA Oracle
Brazil - SP - Sao Paulo
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1
NOSPAMPLZ!esartoni at omniaglobal dot net
21 years ago
I had a little problem with ocilogon but only with RedHat 8.0. It always returned some kind of error during connection like 'OCISessionBegin - ... invalid character', or 'OCISessionBegin - ... missing or invalid option in ...'

I have finally found what is this problem! You have to change your LANG enviroment variable disabling UTF-8. Example: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 should become LANG=en_US.
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1
lore_giver at lycos dot co dot uk
21 years ago
Running Oracle 9i on a
Solaris 9 (64 bit) platform with a Sun Server E250:
Apache version 1.3.27
PHP version 4.3.1

I was first getting "...wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64.."
while doing a ./configure with the --with-oci8 and --with-oracle parameters.

After some unsuccessfull searched I renamed the $ORACLE_HOME/lib to $ORACLE_HOME/lib.org and then renamed the
$ORACLE_HOME/lib32 to $ORACLE_HOME/lib

Thereafter it went passed this config, but now failed on
not being able to find a libwtc9.so file which was in the
$ORACLE_HOME/lib directory  (this message was displayed in the debug.log in the php source directory).

After setting the Environment variable:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib
I was able to compile without any errors and 'make' and 'make install' ran smoothly.

I only had to add the php type in the httpd.conf (in your apache conf directory eg. /usr/local/apache/conf)..
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
to get the php to work again...

I had to then reverse the $ORACLE_HOME/lib swop on top since php was now having problems with the 32 bit version of the library...so switched it back to 64 and my php script worked....

Hope this helps some out there with similar problems..

Cheers
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3
Saxon Leung
12 years ago
Spending long time in researching how to install this on a freshly installed [Red Hat-based (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora)] Linux, and finally I come to this:

1) Download & install

#yum install oracle-instantclient-basic
#yum install oracle-instantclient-devel

or

Download:
oci8-1.4.7.tgz
oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm
oracle-instantclient11.2-devel-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm

#rpm -i oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm
#rpm -i oracle-instantclient11.2-devel-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm

2) Check PHP version:

#rpm -qa | grep php

It should looks sth like this:
php-devel-5.3.10-1.w5
php-pdo-5.3.10-1.w5
php-ldap-5.3.10-1.w5
php-cli-5.3.10-1.w5
php-mysql-5.3.10-1.w5
php-5.3.10-1.w5
php-common-5.3.10-1.w5

3) Update if needed by:

#yum --enablerepo=webtatic update php

** Make sure you have php-devel installed before updating to a newer version, or you might have problem to add package back. If it happened, you\\'ll have to reinstall all php packages (sadly I did):

#yum remove php-common
#yum --enablerepo=webtatic install php

4) Remember to install a C compiler for installation use:
#yum install gcc

5) Unzip oci8-1.4.7.tgz:
#tar xvzf oci8-1.4.7

6) Run phpize (php-devel required):
# phpize

7) Setup Config:
# ./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib

8) Add a sym-link to the SDK header files (Comes with the instantclient-devel)

#ln -s /usr/include/oracle/11.2/client64/ /usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib/include

** The installation defaults to use 1 dir path only, so the missing SDK files need to add back to that directory, by adding a sym-link \\"include\\" under the lib folder.

9) Compile and install:
#make all install

[Please note that I'm installing on a 64-bit platform so links are pointing at client64 instead of client]
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3
scoop at subindie dot com
19 years ago
Regarding compiling with the recently updated OCI8 Extension (http://pecl.php.net/package/oci8).

I ran into problems when statically compiling, such as numerous "undefined reference to `zif_oci_***'" errors.  Since I likely won't be the only one to run into this problem, here's some helpful hints:

If you've previously compiled your php installation, first: make clean

Then replace the existing php-x.x.x/ext/oci8 directory with the latest package from: http://pecl.php.net/package/oci8

./buildconf --force
./config ..
make
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2
aliquis at die dot spammers dot die dot link-net dot org
21 years ago
I've had all kinds of errors with RedHat9(yuck), PHP 4.3.4RC1 and Oracle enterprice server 9.2. For some time I thought that --with-oci8 wouldn't work with Oracle9 but that wasn't the case, the solution was many steps.

1) install oracle, might require some tricks, on RedHat9 I had to put this in my .bashrc:
export ORACLE_BASE=/opt/ora9
export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/9.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
export ORACLE_OWNER=oracle
export ORACLE_SID=netadmdb
export ORACLE_TERM=vt100
export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1
export THREADS_FLAG=native
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_BASE/product/9.2/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

2) compile php, use --with-oci8

3) Make an init-script for the oracle9 database server, as default the TNS listener doesn't run so add that on aswell, example:
#!/bin/bash
export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/ora9/product/9.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
export ORACLE_SID=netadmdb
export DISPLAY=:0
oracle_user=oracle
export oracle_user
case $1 in
start)
su - "$oracle_user"<<EOO
sqlplus /nolog<<EOS
connect / as sysdba
startup
EOS
/opt/ora9/product/9.2/bin/lsnrctl start
EOO
;;
stop)
su - "$oracle_user"<<EOO
/opt/ora9/product/9.2/bin/lsnrctl stop
sqlplus /nolog<<EOS
connect / as sysdba
shutdown immediate
EOS
EOO
;;
*)
echo "Usage: ora9 [start|stop]"
;;
esac

4) Configure Apache. For some reason it requires some tweaking with environment variables, in the begining I put those in the PHP-script with putenv, later in the httpd.conf with SetEnv and the mod_env module. But I was told to not do that and instead set them in the init script for Apache. So I copied apachectl to /etc/init.d and edited envvars in $APACHE_PATH/bin. First I added all kinds of env variables until I got it to work, and then I removed them one at a time and came to the following minimal configuration:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/apache2/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
ORACLE_HOME=/opt/ora9/product/9.2
LANG=sv_SE
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH ORACLE_HOME LANG

Earlier I had added NLS_LANG and TNS_ADMIN above those mentioned above (point 1), but it seems those aren't needed really. So no need for TWO_TASK or ORACLE_SID, only needed one is ORACLE_HOME and if you get missing/invalid option for your OCILogon set LANG to something else like I did. Someone earlier said it might have to do with UTF8.

So if you are sure lsncrtl are started and that you have the correct env-variables set in your $APACHE_PATH/bin/envvars you can just use something like:

$iDBConn=OCILogon("user","pass","netadmdb");

in your PHP-script and it should work.
Hope this helps someone.
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1
mike at macgirvin.com
16 years ago
Some notes to save somebody some grief:

Installing the Oracle libraries and access module into an existing PHP5 installation on Debian etch without rebuilding php...

First grab the Linux instantclient from oracle.com - you'll also need the client SDK kit. Here I'm using instantclient 11.1

create a directory for these such as /home/oracle and unpack both of them to that directory.

Go into the oracle directory (and into the instantclient_11_1 directory) and create a symlink:

$ ln -s libclntsh.so.11.1 libclntsh.so

Grab the oci8 PECL package and unpack it somewhere (~/oci).

Make sure you have the following packages (in addition to php5, php5-cli, apache2, etc).

  php5-dev

  libaio1

  php-pear


Go to the oci8 directory (~/oci/).

You need to run 'pecl build' once to create the configure script.

$pecl build

But the problem is that pecl build will claim the files are installed and they are not. I wasted half a day on this one. Now go into the oci8-1.3.0 directory and build again by hand:

$ cd oci8-1.3.0

$ ./configure --with-oci8=instantclient,/home/oracle/instantclient_11_1

$ make

Fix any errors/warnings before continuing

Don't make install, which won't work.

$ cp ./modules/oci8.so /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs

Replace 20060613+lfs with whatever module directory has been setup for you in /usr/lib/php5

Create /etc/php5/conf.d/oci8.ini:

----

extension=oci8.so

----

Now run the php cmdline in verbose mode (php -v) and see if everything loaded. Fix it if it didn't.

You may need some env variables setup in your /etc/init.d/apache2 file to make everything work and actually execute queries, but a phpinfo() at this point should show your oci8 extension. See the php.net Oracle pages if you need help with the env variables.

Restart the web server

$ /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
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1
david dot reynoldsat at ipl dot com
17 years ago
I had a problem loading php_oci8.dll with php 5.2, Apache, and windows XP - a module not loaded error, on every apache restart.
I eventually found that I had to add the oracle instantclient library path to the %PATH% under SYSTEM and not under USER.  Doing that, and then rebooting, fixed the error - as Apache is starting as a service (outside the user setup).
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1
Anonymous
22 years ago
Configuring/Compiling PHP as a DSO with Oracle support from source on a Sun Solaris 8 box.  We had already installed Oracle 9.2.0 client tools.

1. Make sure the following tools are installed

    autoconf
    automake
    bison
    flex
    gcc
    make
    gzip
   
    They can be downloaded from http://www.sunfreeware.com.
   
2.  Make sure Apache is installed with DSO support.  We ran the Apache configure/compile like so:

    LIBS=-lpthread ./configure \
    --prefix=/usr/local/apache \
    --enable-module=most \
    --enable-shared=max
   
   
    make
    make install
   
3.  If you haven't already, install the Oracle client tools.
4.  Make sure the following environment variables are set correctly and are accessible by all users.  We set them in /etc/profile.

    ORACLE_HOME
    ORACLE_BASE
    NLS_LANG
    ORA_NLS33
    ORACLE_TERM
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH
   
    (technically, only $ORACLE_HOME is required, but you'll want to set the rest in order to make sure things run smoothly afterward)
   
5.  Make sure '/usr/ccs/bin' is in your path.  If not, add it.
6.  Unpack PHP source (php-4.2.3):

    gunzip php-4.2.3.tar.gz
    tar xvf php-4.2.3.tar
    cd php-4.2.3

   
7.  Run PHP configure like so :

    CC=gcc ./configure --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs \
    --with-config-file-path=/etc \
    --with-mysql \
    --enable-ftp \
    --with-oci8=/path/to/ORACLE_HOME \
    --with-oracle=/path/to/ORACLE_HOME \
    --enable-sigchild
   
8.  Run make:  make
9.  Run this as root:  make install
10.  Change the LoadModule line in httpd.conf to include the fully qualified path.  For us:

    LoadModule php4_module        /usr/local/apache/libexec/libphp4.so
   
11.  Make sure the PHP files types are recognized in your httpd.conf file:

    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
   
12.  Test the configuration:

    /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl configtest
   
    It should return "Syntax OK"
   
13.  Bounce Apache:

    /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl restart
   
   
14.  Here's a simple PHP script to test the setup.  If you don't have access to the default tables Oracle provides, change the connections/tablenames/fields to match your setup:

    <?php

    $db_conn
= ocilogon("scott", "tiger");

   
$cmdstr = "select ename, sal from emp";
   
$parsed = ociparse($db_conn, $cmdstr);
   
ociexecute($parsed);
   
$nrows = ocifetchstatement($parsed, $results);
    echo
"Found: $nrows results<br><br>\n";

    echo
"<table border=1 cellspacing='0' width='50%'>\n";
    echo
"<tr>\n";
    echo
"<td><b>Name</b></td>\n";
    echo
"<td><b>Salary</b></td>\n";
    echo
"</tr>\n";

    for (
$i = 0; $i < $nrows; $i++ ) {
          echo
"<tr>\n";
          echo
"<td>" . $results["ENAME"][$i] . "</td>";
          echo
"<td>$ " . number_format($results["SAL"][$i], 2). "</td>";
          echo
"</tr>\n";
    }

    echo
"</table>\n";

   
?>
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1
Sergey
12 years ago
Lost a day on trying to make work oci8 & pdo_oci extensions in php-fpm 5.3 on OpenSuSE 12.2 (64bit) with latest oracle instant client 11.2.0.3.0.
Any of two works normally with generic instructions. But both extensions caused crash in oci_connect().

Solution was simple add ORACLE_HOME variable BEFORE running php-fpm.

/etc/profile.d/oracle.sh
#!/bin/bash
ORACLE_HOME=/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib
NLS_LANG=american_america.utf8
export ORACLE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH NLS_LANG

/etc/init.d/php-fpm
.....
. /etc/rc.status
. /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh # add this after rc.status (note: dot & space)
.....

After "service php-fpm restart" works normally. Hope this helps.
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2
beer at myplace dot now
15 years ago
I was experiencing issues with Unicode characters being saved incorrectly to my ORA 10 DB. Issue was tracked to not having a NLS_LANG environment variable specified - set this correctly in the Apache environment and the issue was resolved.
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2
benstendahl at hotmail dot com
15 years ago
When using PHP on an IIS server (Windows Server 2000+):

After installing the Oracle Instant Client and adding it to the "PATH" Environment Variable, be sure that you also add "Read & Execute" privileges to the Oracle Instant Client directory for the IIS user designated for the site.  This is especially necessary if IIS has been hardened using the IIS Lockdown tool (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd450372(WS.10).aspx) as users must be explicitly granted permissions from the web.
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2
rainer dot klier at gmx dot at
18 years ago
estoreic (note from 15-May-2006 10:54) is right.

there seems to be a problem with the oci8-api-functions in php 4.4.x.

there are error-messages like these in the error_log:
child pid 22297 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)
*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption (out): 0x00000000019f4730 ***
*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption (!prev): 0x0000000001111d90 ***
*** glibc detected *** corrupted double-linked list: 0x0000000001111d50 ***

using php 4.4.x with oracle 10.x is impossible, until you do the following:
1. download latest oci8-package from http://pecl.php.net/package/oci8
2. extract package somewhere
3. go to php-4.4.x-source directory
4. rm -rf ext/oci8
5. cp extraceted oci8-1.2.x directory to/as ext/oci8
6. make distclean
7. ./buildconf --force
8. ./.configure (with the options you need)
9. make
10. only for x86_64:
create pear-install.ini:
-----------------------------------------------
[PHP]

memory_limit = 128M      ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)
------------------------------------------------

11. edit Makefile:
replace:
PEAR_INSTALL_FLAGS = -n -dshort_open_tag=0 -dsafe_mode=0
with:
PEAR_INSTALL_FLAGS = -cpear-install.ini -dshort_open_tag=0 -dsafe_mode=0

12. make install

have fun!
oracle connections will work now!
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2
denis dot delamarre at chu-rennes dot fr
19 years ago
php5 + Apache 2 + solaris 2.10 + oracle9i (64bits)

'./configure' '--with-oracle=/prod/dba/oraeve/ora9i' '--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs' '--with-zlib' '--with-gd' '--without-mysql' '--with-oci8=/prod/dba/oraeve/ora9i'

fail with :
ld: fatal : fichier libclntsh.so : wrong elf class : ELFCLASS64

the solution is between ./configure and make command to edit Makefile and replace /ora9i/lib  with  /ora9i/lib32

all it's ok
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0
semenov dot v at gmail dot com
5 years ago
CentOS 7 PECL with oci8-2

After documented installation stucks

$ yum install systemtap-sdt-devel
$ export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/include/oracle/XX.X/client64
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH
$ export PHP_DTRACE=yes
$ C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include/oracle/XX.X/client64 pecl install oci8
[autodetect]
$ echo extension=oci8.so > /etc/php.d/instantclient.ini
$ systemctl reload https
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1
oddbec_no_more_spam_kthx at online dot no
20 years ago
I had trouble with norwegian characters using oracle 8.7.1 / php 4something and Apache 2.

The only trouble was that '?' appeared instead of the norwegian characters.

The solution to it all was to add this to the apachectl script:

export NLS_LANG="norwegian_norway.WE8ISO8859P1"
export ORACLE_BASE="/home/oracle"
export ORA_NLS33="/home/oracle/ocommon/nls/admin/data"
export ORACLE_TERM="ansi"
export ORACLE_HOME="/home/oracle"
export LANG="no_NO"

I'm not sure if all of these are necessary, but I took no change, and it works now :)
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0
modir at huanga dot com
13 years ago
For those of you who would like to install this extension on an RedHat/CentOS server. It is actually pretty simple.

Here is what you have to do:
1) Download the following RPM from Oracle: oracle-instantclient11.2-basiclite-11.2.0.2.0.x86_64.rpm (Version number can be newer and check if you need the 64bit version or not). And then install it on the server.

2) yum install php-oci8

3) And as the last step you edit /etc/sysconfig/httpd and write the following line at the end: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib/ (Attention: Path changes depending on the version you have downloaded from the Oracle website.)
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-1
Wilber
2 years ago
The OCI8 extension lets you access Oracle Database.

Use 'pecl install oci8' to install for PHP 8.1.

Use 'pecl install oci8-3.0.1' to install for PHP 8.0.

Use 'pecl install oci8-2.2.0' to install for PHP 7.

Use 'pecl install oci8-2.0.12' to install for PHP 5.2 - PHP 5.6.

Use 'pecl install oci8-1.4.10' to install for PHP 4.3.9 - PHP 5.1.

[username@hostname ~]# php -v
^ To see PHP version
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0
nicodenboer (at) yahoo (dot) com
16 years ago
Hi, I use Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release
10.2.0.1.0 on a Linux workstation for dev purposes, along
with Apache 2 and PHP5. So far I have used it on Kubuntu 8.04.
To get things working on a recently installed notebook with openSUSE
11.0 was a bit more complicated. So I hope someone will be able to
benefit from our experiences. Here is our howto:

# Use the package manager to install the packages php5-pear and
php5-dev, if not installed yet.

# Download the instantclient_11_1, zip files basic, sdk, sqlplus from the Oracle web site

# Switch to user root here, since not all commands to some work sudo

# Unzip these files to /opt/oracle/.
# As a result you will see a dir instantclient_11_1 appearing.

ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libclntsh.so.11.1 \
   /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libclntsh.so 
ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libclntsh.so.11.1 \
   /usr/lib/libclntsh.so
ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libnnz11.so \
   /usr/lib/libnnz11.so
ldconfig # to make sure the system will be able to find the libs

pecl install oci8 # interactively enter option 1,
# then instantclient,/opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1,
# then enter

# if needed, add extension=oci8.so to your php.ini

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

# finished!

Kind regards,
Nico den Boer
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0
jay dot couture at gmail dot com
18 years ago
# Here's what it took to get it going for me on Red Hat on
# x86_32 w/ 10gr2 and php5.1.2
# I sincerely appreciate all of the other poster's notes.
# It was a combination of a few
# of them to get mine configured. My note should reflect this:

# install the instantclient basic and sdk like this
# note: the original poster had you install into a lib subdirectory,
# but when I tried this it couldn't find the sdk files. So I moved
# the files in lib into the parent directory as
# shown below. Actually I copied them, YMMV
mkdir -p /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
    instantclient-basic-linux-x86-32-10.2.0.2-20060331.zip
mkdir -p /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
    instantclient-sdk-linux-x86-32-10.2.0.2-20060331.zip
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/libclntsh.so.10.1
    /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/libclntsh.so

# make the full client use instantclient's files
cd /app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
mv lib oldlib
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib lib
ln -s /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client include

#php configure line is:
    ./configure --with-oci8=instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client

# I had to do this, or the OCI8 would not compile when
# I ran make on PHP5.1.2 I did not do this originally when I
# had the files in the lib sudirectory (see my note above) so
# that may be the true issue.
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

make

make install

#In apache2 edit the envvars and add
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/apache2/lib:
    /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
TNS_ADMIN="/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client"
LANG=en_US
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH LANG TNS_ADMIN

#Restart Apache

Jay
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0
MSapp
19 years ago
Problems compiling 5.0.4 with Oracle Instant Client 10? (i.e. cannot find -lirc)

Remove the "-lirc" from sdk/demo/sysliblist and rerun configure.
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0
kucerar at hhmi dot org
19 years ago
Great Solaris patch!  Finally built.  Here's some tips on connecting:

Just made this on solaris8 32bit, actually works.

1) put everything in one directory
2) unsetenv ORACLE_HOME
3) set the env vars LD_LIBRARY_PATH and SQLPATH and TNS_ADMIN(if you have it) to that directory.
4) use one of the other easy connection notations here

http://www.oracle.com/technology/
docs/tech/sql_plus/10102/readme_ic.htm

These env vars worked when put at the top of apachectl script as well.

To build you may have to fake it out with an ORACLE_HOME var,  but unset it later.  You may also have to fake out the build by putting header files where it is looking for them,  e.g. in the rdbms/demo directory or some such other place.

When running though,  make sure you have only the files required in only one directory.

Oracle has not put up a link to the 32bit solaris sqlplus--you have to guess it--it's there though:

http://download.oracle.com/otn/solaris/instantclient/
instantclient-sqlplus-solaris32-10.1.0.3.zip
 
...and don't forget to add ".world" on to the end of your SID. It's very common to have to specify DBNAME.WORLD to connect.
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mark at magpies dot net
20 years ago
For those trying to use the Oracle Instant Client 10g in a win32 environment, heres a nice easy howto. If you fully read the docs properly and understand what your reading you will be able to set it up, but if like me you want a quick easy fix, heres how I did it.

1. Download and install the Oracle Instant Client to where ever (lets say  c:\ora\client  )
2. Add your connect info, copy a previously created or provided tnsnames.ora file to the above directory.
3. Change Path in the Environment Variables area to add this directory to the path. ie.  c:\ora\client;%SystemRoot%;<and so on>
4. Open regedit and add a Key called ORACLE to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
5. To the ORACLE key add a string value called TNS_ADMIN and assign it the directory above (ie. c:\ora\client )  So you end up with KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\TNS_ADMIN = c:\ora\client
6. Set php to use Oci8 extension and bobs your uncle
7. Reboot.

Option 7 was required as the oci8 extension or php wouldn't pick up the path change. Also my problem was how to use other programs like sqlplus without creating extra Environment Variables etc the TNS_ADMIN / tnsnames.ora part makes that simpler and allows you to call things the same as you would before.

PS: This should apply to all the Instant Clients. I haven't tried it with any others but 10g though.

Hope this helps.
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ed000001 at hotmail dot com
20 years ago
If you get your connectivity working with putenv on ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME, but you do not want to use putenv because you want safemode on. You will need to pass these from your environment variables.  Somehow setenv in httpd.conf did not do the trick for me... the values are set but the connectivity does not work.  Then you will need to set the environment in your /etc/init.d/apachectl or /etc/profile and use a "PassEnv ORACLE_HOME ORACLE_SID" directive in httpd.conf so that these variables are picked up by php.

However, when you suexec in Apache 2.0, the server will only allow you to pass a given set of variables which are defined in the apache source code in the file apache-dir/support/suexec.c

In order to pass ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME to PHP you need to add these to that file.  The relevant changed piece of code where I added "ORACLE_" looks something like this:

char *safe_env_lst[] =
{
    /* variable name starts with */
    "HTTP_",
    "SSL_",
    "ORACLE_",

    /* variable name is */
...

You will have to do a "make clean", "./configure", "make", "make install".  Do not forget to do the "make clean" or the apache changes will not be picked up.

Here is a nice php test script :)

<?php // test-oracle.php

   
function dump_array($a_value)
    {
       
reset($a_value);
        for (
$s_str = '' ; list($s_key, $x_value) = each($a_value) ;  )
        {
           
$s_str .= "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;".
                     
"<span style=\"color:green\">[</span>$s_key<span style=\"color:green\">]</span> = ".
                     
"<span style=\"color:red\">[</span>$x_value<span style=\"color:red\">]</span><br />";
        }
       
reset($a_value);
        echo
$s_str;
    }

#putenv("ORACLE_SID=ORTD");
#putenv("ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0.1.0");
$ORACLE_SID = getenv("ORACLE_SID");
$ORACLE_HOME = getenv("ORACLE_HOME");
echo
"ORACLE_SID = $ORACLE_SID<br>";
echo
"ORACLE_HOME = $ORACLE_HOME<br>";

   
$cn = ociplogon('scott', 'tiger');
echo
"cn = $cn<br />\n";
   
$st = ociparse($cn, "select tname from tab");
echo
"st = $st<br />\n";
   
$ex = ociexecute($st,OCI_COMMIT_ON_SUCCESS);
echo
"ex = $ex<br />\n";
   
$mr = ocifetchinto($st,$xx,OCI_ASSOC);
    while (
$mr )
    {
       
dump_array($xx);
       
$mr = ocifetchinto($st,$xx,OCI_ASSOC);
    }
   
$fr = ocifreestatement($st);
echo
"fr = $fr<br />";
   
ocicommit($cn);
   
ocilogoff($cn);
?>
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aleigh at tessier dot com
21 years ago
Warning: ocilogon(): _oci_open_session: OCIHandleAlloc OCI_HTYPE_SVCCTX: OCI_INVALID_HANDLE can also be caused by running the webserver with an ORACLE_HOME of a (radically?) different version than PHP was linked against.

I experienced this when I accidently used an Oracle 8 ORACLE_HOME for a PHP that was linked against Oracle 9.
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kakukkfu at mailbox dot hu
22 years ago
Better to insert needed variables into apache(!) (or your webserver - respectively) start script.

For example on UNIX systems /etc/init.d/apache would contain following lines before anything else:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -f ~oracle/.profile ]; then
        source ~oracle/.profile
fi

The ~oracle/.profile has the appropiate settings to start an Oracle database so it is always up-to-date for PHP, too. (If settings are changed, don't forget to restart your webserver.) This way you just no need to worry what to include or define for PHP.
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-1
wingjeeplau at gmail dot com
11 years ago
In Ubuntu the setting is in file /etc/apache2/envvars
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0
Marinne at ilovechocolate dot com
23 years ago
One simple but useful note:check whether your TNS Listener is running! By default, it's not started automatically when an Oracle instance is started. Login as oracle then type :

lsnrctl START

After it's started, I can sucessfully run the sample code on this page! I used to got ora-12514 error before doing this.
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bluei at phpworld dot org
23 years ago
check your tnsnames.ora permission.

ex)
ORACLE_HOME = /home/oracle/oracle

chmod 755 /home/oracle/oracle/network/admin -R

Yahoo!!!!!! I solved it!!!
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shmengie_2000 at yahoo dot com
24 years ago
couple of notes about startup/shutdown on linux:  (redhat, maybe others)

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libpthread.so

Caused the start/stop script to fail to stop the httpd process. 
The LD_PRELOAD environment var caused the 'ps' command to core dump.  I went bald figuring that out.

Easiest fix I could think of was to move all the oracle/php varialble exports so they are only set in the start section of the httpd script.

Never thought setting those vars globally in the script would cause problems.  That's what I get for thinking...

One other note:  Make sure the httpd process is shutdown before Oracle.

eg:
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K15httpd
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K25Oracle

Lingering connections to oracle may cause shutdown to take forever.

gl & hf

-Joe
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-1
john at john-warner dot com
22 years ago
In addition to the earlier posts here is a further explaination;

Problem: Regular and Remote authentication does not work using Windows 2000 + PHP and Oracle 8i, 9i.

Secondary Issue if using Oracle 9.2.0.1
     When using Oracle 9.2.0.1 the Error structure returned by Oracle is different than expected by PHP. As a result there will be no legible error message other than the following;
     Warning: _oci_open_server: in ...

Using Oracle 9.0.1.1 the error message returned is any of the following depending on your situation;
    
Warning: _oci_open_server: ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed in ...
Warning: _oci_open_server: ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name in ...
Warning: _oci_open_server: ORA-12505: TNS:listener could not resolve SID given in connect descriptor in ...
    
Resolution:
In order to get this to work properly you need to do the following;
In reference to ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed in ...
you need to edit your sqlnet.ora file and change the
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NTS) to
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NONE)
The reason is that using NTS validation on a Windows 2000 machine essentially means Kerberos.
Using (NONE) will tell oracle not to expect kerberos "Credentials" as a means of validation. In turn it will use the oracle authentication for a database user.

In reference to ORA-12154 and ORA-12505 you need to do the following;
In your php code you are using to connect you need to copy the section in tnsnames.ora
into a variable.
For example;
<?php
putenv
("ORACLE_SID=TESTDB");
//putenv("ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/ora90");
//putenv("TNS_ADMIN=/oracle/ora90/network/admin");
$username = "scott";
$passwd = "tiger";
$db="(DESCRIPTION=
           (ADDRESS_LIST=
             (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
               (HOST=yourTargetMachine)(PORT=1521)
             )
           )
             (CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=TESTDB))
      )"
;
$conn = OCILogon($username,$passwd,$db);
if (!
$conn)
{
    echo
"Connection failed";
    echo
"Error Message: [" . OCIError($conn) . "]";
    exit;
}
else
{
    echo
"Connected!";
}
...
?>
I left the ORACLE_HOME and TNS_ADMIN putenv lines commented out and your need for them depends on which web server you are using. If you are using Apache, you may need both.
If you are using Microsoft IIS you may need ORACLE_HOME. Putting it in can't hurt and it appears PHP may read them if they are there but either way you should be working at this
point.

Live long and prosper.
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