Run a PHP application

Getting an application running on Amphitheatre is essentially working out how to package it as a deployable image. Once packaged it can be deployed to the Amphitheatre platform.

The Example Application

You can get the code for the example from the GitHub repository. Just git clone https://github.com/amphitheatre-app/amp-example-php to get a local copy.

The amp-example-php application is, as you'd expect for an example, small. It's a PHP application that print the 'Hello world'. Here's all the code from public_html/index.php:

<?php
$message = "Hello World!";
echo($message);

Running the Application

cd ~/public_html
php -S localhost:8080

Now run the service with curl (in a separate terminal window), by running the following command (shown with its output):

$ curl localhost:8080
Hello, World!

Install Amphitheatre

We are ready to start working with Amphitheatre and that means we need amp, our CLI app for managing apps on Amphitheatre. If you've already installed it, carry on. If not, hop over to our installation guide.

Initialize the Character

To launch an app on Amphitheatre, run amp init in the directory with your source code. This will create and configure a Character for you by inspecting your source code, then prompt you to deploy.

$ amp init

Scanning source code
 Detected PHP app
 Using the following build configuration
         Builder: paketobuildpacks/builder:full
         Buildpacks: paketo-buildpacks/php
Wrote config file .amp.toml
Your Character is ready. run with `amp run`
...

First, this command scans your source code to determine how to build a deployment image as well as identify any other configuration your app needs, such as secrets and exposed ports.

After your source code is scanned and the results are printed, amp creates a Character for you and writes your configuration to a .amp.toml file. You'll then be prompted to build and deploy your character. Once complete, your app will be running on Amphitheatre.

Inside .amp.toml

The .amp.toml file now contains a default configuration for deploying your Character. If we look at the .amp.toml file we can see it in there:

name = "amp-example-php"
version = "0.0.1"
authors = ["Eguo Wang <wangeguo@gmail.com>"]
edition = "v1"
description = "A simple PHP example app"
readme = "README.md"
homepage = "https://github.com/amphitheatre-app/amp-example-php"
repository = "https://github.com/amphitheatre-app/amp-example-php"
license = "Apache-2.0"
license-file = "LICENSE"
keywords = ["example", "php", "getting-started"]
categories = ["example"]

[[build.env]]
name = "BP_PHP_WEB_DIR"
value = "public_html"

The amp command will always refer to this file in the current directory if it exists, specifically for the Character name value at the start. That name will be used to identify the Character to the Amphitheatre platform. The rest of the file contains settings to be applied to the Character when it deploys.

See the Paketo PHP Buildpack documentation for more options.

Deploying to Amphitheatre

To deploy your Character, just run:

amp run

This will lookup our .amp.toml file, and get the Character name amp-example-php from there. Then amp will start the process of deploying our Character to the Amphitheatre platform. amp will return you to the command line when it's done.

Arrived at Destination

You have successfully built, deployed your first PHP application on Amphitheatre.