need help with PDO requirement

[adept digital evolution]

Hi all,

I have been helping to review and edit the d7 installation manual from
the standpoint of a reasonably technical end-user, but one with zero php
experience and very little experience with my linux web server (CentOS).
(And, IMO, the average person who wishes to download, install, and use
Drupal should not really need to know anything about coding in php, and
often will have no access to things like php configuration for the
server, such as with a shared hosting account)

Anyway, I do have control over my own server (a VPS) with WHM for the
server and CPanel for the domains it serves.

I am completely stymied with the need to install the PDO extension and
enable it.

Where do I get it? Where do I put it? How do I get it running?

So far someone has copied information from an external site to a "What
is PDO?" page at http://drupal.org/node/549702 but it is not helping me
at all.

I have also visited http://us3.php.net/manual/en/pdo.installation.php
but this page that supposedly ought to tell one how to install tells one
really NOTHING.

I have seen references to something like "./configure". What is that?
Where do I find it?



Could someone volunteer to help me get PDO installed (although since I'm
on CentOS 5.2 and PHP 5.2.8 as I understand it it is there already
somewhere; I just have to figure out how to enable it)?

I ran into a similar problem with the need in D6 for mb_string. My
status page always reports it's missing but I have no clue, again, where
to get it, where to put it, and how to get it running.

If someone can work with me offline on this I will write up instructions
that are intelligible to us mere mortals, i.e., the most important
target market for Drupal.

thanks,

kazar at d.o.
techlists at ade.pt
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Victor Kane]

I googled on "install PDO on Centos" and got several sites like the
following, which advises not to install from scratch but rather make use of
the package manager, yum:
http://karoshiethos.com/2008/07/24/installing-pdo_mysql-on-centos/

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar
http://projectflowandtracker.com

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 4:19 AM, adept digital evolution

Post by adept digital evolution
Hi all,
I have been helping to review and edit the d7 installation manual from the
standpoint of a reasonably technical end-user, but one with zero php
experience and very little experience with my linux web server (CentOS).
(And, IMO, the average person who wishes to download, install, and use
Drupal should not really need to know anything about coding in php, and
often will have no access to things like php configuration for the server,
such as with a shared hosting account)
Anyway, I do have control over my own server (a VPS) with WHM for the
server and CPanel for the domains it serves.
I am completely stymied with the need to install the PDO extension and
enable it.
Where do I get it? Where do I put it? How do I get it running?
So far someone has copied information from an external site to a "What is
PDO?" page at http://drupal.org/node/549702 but it is not helping me at
all.
I have also visited http://us3.php.net/manual/en/pdo.installation.php but
this page that supposedly ought to tell one how to install tells one really
NOTHING.
I have seen references to something like "./configure". What is that? Where
do I find it?
Could someone volunteer to help me get PDO installed (although since I'm on
CentOS 5.2 and PHP 5.2.8 as I understand it it is there already somewhere; I
just have to figure out how to enable it)?
I ran into a similar problem with the need in D6 for mb_string. My status
page always reports it's missing but I have no clue, again, where to get it,
where to put it, and how to get it running.
If someone can work with me offline on this I will write up instructions
that are intelligible to us mere mortals, i.e., the most important target
market for Drupal.
thanks,
kazar at d.o.
techlists at ade.pt
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[TechnoSophos]

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 8:19 AM, adept digital

I honestly think this new PDO requirement will send 99% of the general
public packing (i.e., looking for something to use besides Drupal).

PDO should be included with PHP in just about every normal PHP5
distribution. Hopefully, it will not be an issue for 99% of the
general public.

CentOS and RHEL may be exceptions, because they do not come with PHP
5.2 out of the box. (They're a few years behind on that.) So if your
server is running PHP < 5.2, you need to look for instructions on
updating *PHP*, not *PDO*.

In my phpinfo() results I see this in the "Configure Command" row of the

'./configure' '--disable-pdo' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-calendar'
'--enable-ftp' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--enable-libxml'
'--enable-magic-quotes' '--enable-sockets' '--prefix=/usr/local'
'--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr'
'--with-gd' '--with-imap=/opt/php_with_imap_client/' '--with-imap-ssl=/usr'
'--with-jpeg-dir=/usr' '--with-kerberos' '--with-libxml-dir=/opt/xml2/'
'--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-mysql-sock=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'
'--with-png-dir=/usr' '--with-ttf' '--with-xpm-dir=/usr' '--with-zlib'
'--with-zlib-dir=/usr'

Further down the page there is now a PDO section that shows the pdo_mysql
driver is loaded.
But I'm imagining that I have to edit some document to change
"--disable-pdo" to "--enable-pdo". Where is that doc. In my earlier message
I noted: 'I have seen references to something like "./configure". What is
that? Where do I find it? '
so,
I have seen references to something like "./configure". What is that? Where
do I find it? How do I edit it? I tried typing "locate ./configure" at the
command prompt but that didn't work to help me find where to do this.

Basically, the above tells you what flags were set BEFORE the PHP
source code was compiled. To change a configure flag, you basically
need to get the source code and start from scratch. My guess is that
you do not want to do that (nor should you need to).

Check your PHP version and make sure it is high enough to meet D7's
minimal requirements. That's probably the best way to start.

Matt Butcher

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

Further down the page there is now a PDO section that shows the pdo_mysql
driver is loaded.

If the extension is loaded and visible in php.ini, it ought to be working
already - sounds like a good time to hit install.php - it should hopefully
tell you if something's wrong (if it doesn't, please file a core issue).

Nat

[adept digital evolution]

Post by Victor Kane

Further down the page there is now a PDO section that shows the

pdo_mysql

driver is loaded.

If the extension is loaded and visible in php.ini, it ought to be
working already - sounds like a good time to hit install.php - it
should hopefully tell you if something's wrong (if it doesn't, please
file a core issue).

thanks Nat, will do this later (gulp gulp gulp)

if ade.pt evaporates off the planet you'll know there was a problem, lol

and i will file an issue


kazar
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[adept digital evolution]

Post by TechnoSophos

I honestly think this new PDO requirement will send 99% of the general
public packing (i.e., looking for something to use besides Drupal).

PDO should be included with PHP in just about every normal PHP5
distribution. Hopefully, it will not be an issue for 99% of the
general public.

Thanks for answering Matt!

Maybe pdo is included by on my server there were no pdo drivers
installed when I did phpinfo()

I think this is going to be the case on 99% of the public's servers,
considering that most of us are only equipped to use CPanel or Plesk or
Ensim or the like.


If it *is* true that PDO is included with PHP on all servers, we should
definitely take the info on PDO out of the D7 installation guide that is
shaping up, and perhaps just link to a informational page that is
external to the guide itself. Because the page is there and I am told it
is a requirement, I just spent 2 hours of my life asking questions,
researching on the web, and went and put all sorts of who-knows-what all
over my server, only to find out that I probably did not need to?


Can someone please say how exactly one can verify before installing D7
(or whether it is really necessary *before* installing) whether one has
the PDO extension enabled for the database one will be using??

This needs to become part of the installation guide, your answer will
really help. What can the average end-user check to receive confirmation
that, 'Oh, OK, according to this installation guide I don't have to
worry about PDO because I see "____________________________" on my
phpinfo() page'

What would fill in that blank?

Post by TechnoSophos
CentOS and RHEL may be exceptions, because they do not come with PHP
5.2 out of the box. (They're a few years behind on that.) So if your
server is running PHP < 5.2, you need to look for instructions on
updating *PHP*, not *PDO*.

***@server1 [~]# php --version
PHP 5.2.8 (cli) (built: Feb 21 2009 20:20:11)
Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies


Yet, there was nothing about any PDO extensions in my phpinfo() and the

Post by TechnoSophos
'--disable-pdo'
Basically, the above tells you what flags were set BEFORE the PHP
source code was compiled. To change a configure flag, you basically
need to get the source code and start from scratch. My guess is that
you do not want to do that (nor should you need to).

no, on my CPanel server I do not want to do that. I guess I could get
another VPS for $5/month that has only CentOS and not WHM/CPanel
installed on it, BUT THIS IS NOT MY JOB (as interesting as all this is
in a perverse sort of way)

Post by TechnoSophos
Check your PHP version and make sure it is high enough to meet D7's
minimal requirements. That's probably the best way to start.

I have set my WebHostManager (WHM) update preferences to "stable" (by
default it's set to "release") so everything is pretty much up to date.

I'm just afraid that if I do not have PDO enabled my whole installation
will blow up when I run the install script.


Alll IIII caaannn saaayyyy is,

Drupal is certainly not for the general public. Not installing Drupal,
anyhow. I'm sorry to say this if folks here think that Drupal is really
something that even 50% of the general public could get installed on
their own web server for their own small business or organization or
personal blog or anything. Won't happen.

:-(

thanks again, Matt, I'm still hanging in here, by a slim thread but
still hanging in. I'll be very sad if I have to dump my own Drupal site
and go back to Dreamweaver, but as with many folks I am not financed to
hire someone with the sort of knowledge that's required to install &
maintain Drupal's back end....

kazar
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[TechnoSophos]

Did you try the install and it failed already, or are you just trying
to check everything before trying the install?

Sorry, I'm not totally understanding.

Matt

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 11:03 AM, adept digital

Post by adept digital evolution

Post by TechnoSophos

I honestly think this new PDO requirement will send 99% of the general
public packing (i.e., looking for something to use besides Drupal).

PDO should be included with PHP in just about every normal PHP5
distribution. Hopefully, it will not be an issue for 99% of the
general public.

Thanks for answering Matt!
Maybe pdo is included by on my server there were no pdo drivers installed
when I did phpinfo()
I think this is going to be the case on 99% of the public's servers,
considering that most of us are only equipped to use CPanel or Plesk or
Ensim or the like.
If it *is* true that PDO is included with PHP on all servers, we should
definitely take the info on PDO out of the D7 installation guide that is
shaping up, and perhaps just link to a informational page that is external
to the guide itself. Because the page is there and I am told it is a
requirement, I just spent 2 hours of my life asking questions, researching
on the web, and went and put all sorts of who-knows-what all over my server,
only to find out that I probably did not need to?
Can someone please say how exactly one can verify before installing D7 (or
whether it is really necessary *before* installing) whether one has the PDO
extension enabled for the database one will be using??
This needs to become part of the installation guide, your answer will really
help. What can the average end-user check to receive confirmation that, 'Oh,
OK, according to this installation guide I don't have to worry about PDO
because I see "____________________________" on my phpinfo() page'
What would fill in that blank?

Post by TechnoSophos
CentOS and RHEL may be exceptions, because they do not come with PHP
5.2 out of the box. (They're a few years behind on that.) So if your
server is running PHP < 5.2, you need to look for instructions on
updating *PHP*, not *PDO*.

PHP 5.2.8 (cli) (built: Feb 21 2009 20:20:11)
Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies
Yet, there was nothing about any PDO extensions in my phpinfo() and the only

Post by TechnoSophos
'--disable-pdo'
Basically, the above tells you what flags were set BEFORE the PHP
source code was compiled. To change a configure flag, you basically
need to get the source code and start from scratch. My guess is that
you do not want to do that (nor should you need to).

no, on my CPanel server I do not want to do that. I guess I could get
another VPS for $5/month that has only CentOS and not WHM/CPanel installed
on it, BUT THIS IS NOT MY JOB (as interesting as all this is in a perverse
sort of way)

Post by TechnoSophos
Check your PHP version and make sure it is high enough to meet D7's
minimal requirements. That's probably the best way to start.

I have set my WebHostManager (WHM) update preferences to "stable" (by
default it's set to "release") so everything is pretty much up to date.
I'm just afraid that if I do not have PDO enabled my whole installation will
blow up when I run the install script.
Alll IIII caaannn saaayyyy is,
Drupal is certainly not for the general public. Not installing Drupal,
anyhow. I'm sorry to say this if folks here think that Drupal is really
something that even 50% of the general public could get installed on their
own web server for their own small business or organization or personal blog
or anything. Won't happen.
:-(
thanks again, Matt, I'm still hanging in here, by a slim thread but still
hanging in. I'll be very sad if I have to dump my own Drupal site and go
back to Dreamweaver, but as with many folks I am not financed to hire
someone with the sort of knowledge that's required to install & maintain
Drupal's back end....
kazar
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[adept digital evolution]

Post by TechnoSophos
Did you try the install and it failed already, or are you just trying
to check everything before trying the install?
Sorry, I'm not totally understanding.

Sorry if i was unclear, I joined the documentation project to make
myself a Real Life Guinea Pig. I am trying to follow the installation
docs and am helping to edit so they are intelligible to mere mortals
like me. :-)

(don't worry, I have plenty of experience with documentation, just not
with Drupal, Unix or php!)

based on what I've heard so far I am willing to proceed with the install
script (no i did not try yet, I was trying to follow the instructions
about the PDO requirements first)

i'll report back

kazar
--
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List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[l***@garfieldtech.com]

Post by adept digital evolution
Alll IIII caaannn saaayyyy is,
Drupal is certainly not for the general public. Not installing Drupal,
anyhow. I'm sorry to say this if folks here think that Drupal is really
something that even 50% of the general public could get installed on
their own web server for their own small business or organization or
personal blog or anything. Won't happen.
:-(
thanks again, Matt, I'm still hanging in here, by a slim thread but
still hanging in. I'll be very sad if I have to dump my own Drupal site
and go back to Dreamweaver, but as with many folks I am not financed to
hire someone with the sort of knowledge that's required to install &
maintain Drupal's back end....
kazar
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

You're really making it more complicated than it needs to be. :-)

1) On your phpinfo() page, right at the top, it will say what version of
PHP you're running. If it's older than PHP 5.2.2, get a new web host.
Really, your web host is not worth giving money to if they can't keep up
with PHP versions that are now well over a year old. Drupal 7 requires
PHP 5.2, and 5.2.1 in particular had huge memory bugs.

If it's a managed server where the host sets up the software for you,
and it doesn't include PDO out of the box, get a new web host. That
means that they're actively removing PDO from the default configuration
and not putting it back; Drupal requires a working regex engine, too,
which can also be disabled but only a moronic web host would do so. :-)

On a VPS they may give you a choice of distributions. Pick one that has
a PHP 5.2.x version of PHP out of the box. Sadly that leaves out RHEL,
because Red Hat doesn't update their software except every 4 years or so
and still ships PHP 5.1.6. (All the jokes people used to make about
Debian? They apply to Red Hat these days.)

You probably found old instructions for installing PDO from source,
which should not be necessary on any modern system. All the stuff about
"./configure" you should actively ignore unless you want to make life
hard on yourself.

Some distros will disable bits of the base install and then offer them
as extra modules. On most Debian-based systems, for instance, the base
PHP does not have PDO when you just run:

apt-get install php

However, you can then just as easily run:

apt-get install php5-pdo php5-pdo-mysql

And you're done. On CentOS replace "apt-get" with "yum". The package
names may be slightly different, so just search your package repository
for "php" and "pdo". It should be readily recognizable.

Understand also that you're running an unmanaged VPS by the sound of it.
That means, by definition, that you are expected to be your own
sysadmin for the server. Installing software on the server is entirely
your responsibility to get right. That has nothing to do with Drupal,
or any other PHP framework.

*Most* PHP frameworks at this point have moved to PDO or are in the
process of doing so. Many also require PEAR libraries, which would also
be your job to install. Any PHP app requires a properly functioning
LAMP server underneath it. You need to either know how to manage one,
hire someone who does, or get a web host that will do it for you (which
is most of them).

If you're not up to the task of managing your own server, you shouldn't
be using an unmanaged VPS. You should be using a managed VPS or a
traditional shared host. There's nothing wrong with that; most people
are not up to the task of running their own server. That's why managed
hosts exist, shared or otherwise.

--Larry Garfield
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
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[adept digital evolution]

Post by l***@garfieldtech.com
If you're not up to the task of managing your own server, you
shouldn't be using an unmanaged VPS. You should be using a managed
VPS or a traditional shared host. There's nothing wrong with that;
most people are not up to the task of running their own server.
That's why managed hosts exist, shared or otherwise.

all your points well taken Larry.

If PDO is going to be on 95% of all web servers by default, then the
About PDO page should come back out of the installation docs. And should
be replaced by offering some command that can be run or some page that
one can look at for determining whether it does already exist on one's
server.

still in hopes of someone posting instructions for that so i can not
only complete this test install but finish the editing job i promised to
do to make the docs intelligible to the average "Drupal consumer".

kazar
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Nathaniel Catchpole]

If you have a Drupal 5 or 6 site, then admin/reports/status has a PHP
section, you can click on PHP and get the output of phpinfo() without having
to create that page yourself (although you're already past that).

Really the best thing you can do is try to run the install and see what
breaks - if our instructions say 'install PDO first', they shouldn't - they
should say 'try installing - here's what to do if it goes wrong'.

Nat

On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 6:21 PM, adept digital evolution

Post by adept digital evolution

If you're not up to the task of managing your own server, you shouldn't be
using an unmanaged VPS. You should be using a managed VPS or a traditional
shared host. There's nothing wrong with that; most people are not up to the
task of running their own server. That's why managed hosts exist, shared or
otherwise.

all your points well taken Larry.
If PDO is going to be on 95% of all web servers by default, then the About
PDO page should come back out of the installation docs. And should be
replaced by offering some command that can be run or some page that one can
look at for determining whether it does already exist on one's server.
still in hopes of someone posting instructions for that so i can not only
complete this test install but finish the editing job i promised to do to
make the docs intelligible to the average "Drupal consumer".
kazar
--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[adept digital evolution]

Post by Victor Kane
I googled on "install PDO on Centos" and got several sites like the
following, which advises not to install from scratch but rather make
http://karoshiethos.com/2008/07/24/installing-pdo_mysql-on-centos/

thank you Victor, and I had certainly tried Google before asking on
this list.

the page you point to is completely over my head/beyond my experience.

like I said, I have no experience administering Unix servers. I have a
VPS account with WHM & CPanel. I have followed the instructions on that
page but OMIGOD was that scary since if I blow up my web server I have
no idea what i'm doing!!

I honestly think this new PDO requirement will send 99% of the general
public packing (i.e., looking for something to use besides Drupal).

Also, we should add to the very beginning of the installation guide, in
the Requirements, big text warning that folks with shared hosting
accounts who cannot configure php on their servers cannot install Drupal!!



So with my limited knowledge and many gulps and beads of sweat I have
followed the instructions on the page you point to above. This part
scares me now:
# PHP_PDO_SHARED=1 pecl install pdo_mysql
because after following the instructions I find comments on forums out
there such as, "If I remember well, if you build the PDO extension as
"shared" then you HAVE TO build the mysql-pdo, sqlite-pdo etc as shared
too. Also you'll maybe have to recompile both php and mysql " Oh, my,
what have I gotten myself into?!

Following those instructions was very complex and most folks would not
make their way through. Because most folks are like me and have some
WHM/Cpanel sort of server, and there are about 20 different php.ini
files. The one in usr/lib is a symlink. I don't even know how to tell
where a symlink points to. Finally after doing a "locate php.ini" I
double-checked mod dates in my ftp client and picked the most recently
modified copy of php.ini. Restarted Apache using the button in WHM.

Then I had to go Googling around to learn how one views phpinfo(), made
the page, uploaded it to my server, and now I run into a question I
cannot solve because even with my devotion to helping make the docs work
for folks like me I HAVE JUST ABOUT HAD IT.

In my phpinfo() results I see this in the "Configure Command" row of the

Post by Victor Kane
'./configure' '--disable-pdo' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-calendar'
'--enable-ftp' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--enable-libxml'
'--enable-magic-quotes' '--enable-sockets' '--prefix=/usr/local'
'--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr'
'--with-gd' '--with-imap=/opt/php_with_imap_client/'
'--with-imap-ssl=/usr' '--with-jpeg-dir=/usr' '--with-kerberos'
'--with-libxml-dir=/opt/xml2/' '--with-mysql=/usr'
'--with-mysql-sock=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' '--with-png-dir=/usr'
'--with-ttf' '--with-xpm-dir=/usr' '--with-zlib' '--with-zlib-dir=/usr'

Further down the page there is now a PDO section that shows the
pdo_mysql driver is loaded.

But I'm imagining that I have to edit some document to change
"--disable-pdo" to "--enable-pdo". Where is that doc. In my earlier
message I noted: 'I have seen references to something like
"./configure". What is that? Where do I find it? '

so,


I have seen references to something like "./configure". What is that?
Where do I find it? How do I edit it? I tried typing "locate
./configure" at the command prompt but that didn't work to help me find
where to do this.

thanks

kazar

--
Pending work: http://drupal.org/project/issues/documentation/
List archives: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/documentation/

[Nancy Wichmann]

If your host wants to attract any Drupal sites, they need to install PDO for
you and make it available to everyone. Tell them you need it and ask them to
do it.

Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King,
Jr.

--
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[adept digital evolution]

Post by Nancy Wichmann
If your host wants to attract any Drupal sites, they need to install PDO for
you and make it available to everyone. Tell them you need it and ask them to
do it.

well, my host sells unmanaged VPS's. Maybe I should have gotten a
managed VPS but I couldn't afford one.... but point well taken.

IMO if there isn't already one, Drupal needs a Marketing/Public
Relations committee like Mozilla and OpenOffice.org have, who will write
articles on sites like Web Hosting Talk urging hosting providers to
tweak their install scripts so that servers they rent are Drupal-ready
(even if there is no one-click install).

And the Drupal install docs regarding PDO need to be written for the
average end-user to understand that not only is this not something they
really ought to play with, but is likely something they don't even have
rights to do within the average hosting account. "Ask your provider".
And now I'm learning it isn't even something you necessarily have to do,
though I still await a clear instruction on how one can verify whether
or not one's server needs it....

kazar
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[Shari]

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