Configure CloudLinux software, PHP and mod_lsapi on a server with no control panel

Issue

This is a practical manual of setting up Apache + mod_lsapi + CageFS + PHP Selector on a server with no panel installed.

Environment

• CloudLinux OS 6(h)/7(h)/8
• No panel

Solution

It is assumed that our system has been converted and loaded with CloudLinux kernel. Since PHP Selector installation requires CageFS and LVE Manager installed in the system, let's start with CageFS installation:

yum install cagefs

Next we'll need to install LVE Manager:

yum install lvemanager

Then install Apache and native PHP:

yum install httpd
yum install php-cli

Then install mod_lsapi:

yum install liblsapi liblsapi-devel
yum install mod_lsapi

Finally, install PHP Selector:

yum groupinstall alt-php

If there is a php.conf file in Apache's conf.d, which is usually brought by the php or php-fpm package, then it should be deleted or renamed.

For example, php.conf can be renamed into php.conf.NO

Now let's configure components. Initialize CageFS and enable for all users:

cagefsctl --init
cagefsctl --enable-all

Initialize mod_lsapi (few errors will appear, this is normal, please ignore them):

/usr/bin/switch_mod_lsapi --setup

Enable mod_lsapi PHP handler:

sed -i 's/#AddType/AddType/' /etc/httpd/conf.d/lsapi.conf

Update CageFS skeleton:

cagefsctl --force-update

We also need to open access to 80 port:

firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-port=80/tcp
firewall-cmd --reload

Now we are ready to set up a website. Let's create user first, Change home directory permissions to allow httpd access it and create require directories

adduser cltest1
chmod 711 /home/cltest1
su cltest1 -c "mkdir ~/public_html{,/logs,/cgi-bin}"

Finally, let's add website to Apache configuration. Create a file /etc/httpd/conf.d/vhosts.conf with the following contents:

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName default
  DocumentRoot /var/www/html
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerAdmin [e-mail]
  DocumentRoot "/home/cltest1/public_html"
  ServerName example.com
  ServerAlias www.example.com
  ErrorLog "/home/cltest1/public_html/logs/error.log"
  CustomLog "/home/cltest1/public_html/logs/access.log" common
  ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/home/cltest1/public_html/cgi-bin/"
  SuexecUserGroup cltest1 cltest1
  <Directory "/home/cltest1">
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>
  <Directory "/home/cltest1/public_html/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Please note, first VirtualHost must be defined only once, it will be used for requests that didn't match any other VirtualHost.

Make sure that mod_php is disabled since it's not compatible with PHP Selector:

apachectl -M | grep php

You need to disable it if you see php7_module or a similar module in the output.

Everything is ready now. Restart Apache httpd:

systemctl restart httpd.service

You can now use selectorctl utility to select PHP versions for your users.