Kira Schroder 09:33 on 2019-06-11
Tags: hosting-community ( 77 ), php ( 14 )

PHP Requirements Check-in

Hey everyone!

There’s been some conversation around the PHPPHP PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a general-purpose scripting language especially suited to web development. PHP code is usually processed on a web server by a PHP interpreter. On a web server, the result of the interpreted and executed PHP code would form the whole or part of an HTTP response. extension requirements and recommendations posted by the hostingHosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. team following the release of WordPress 5.2 and Site HealthSite Health This WordPress functionality will perform a number of checks on your installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues, and also allows plugins and themes to add their own checks. Check.

I’m super excited that folks are digging into this documentation to ensure the recommendations are the best they can be for WordPress users!

This post is meant to introduce the background of the list and gain further feedback on the best way forward.

Background

There wasn’t an official set of PHP extension requirements from the WordPress project at all, and the hosting team decided to create documentation so that this would be more clear for both users and hosts. The team hoped this documentation could eventually be used to update the official requirements, since they are not currently complete.

The team did an initial pass with various contributors, including an audit of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Team builds WordPress. to find references to extensions.

This page on the handbook was the result of those folks’ work, and was used as a reference during the addition of Site Health Check in 5.2.

Site Health Check both lists strict requirements and makes recommendations when extensions aren’t strictly required, but WordPress works better with those extensions present.

Feedback

Following the release, there have been tickets about changing the Site Health Check requirements and recommendations, and #47454 is the tracTrac Trac is an open-source, web-based project management and bug tracking system. Trac integrates with major version control systems including ("out of the box") Subversion and Git. ticket where the most recent conversation has been happening.

Following that ticket, there was some chat in #hosting-community, and @dd32 did a first pass on the requirements based on his knowledge of the code base (thanks!). He also gave the idea of using an automated checker to get more detail on requirements. There’s also been some conversation about them in the two hosting meetings since.

There are varying opinions on what should be in Site Health Check, including whether it should be only what Core requires and uses, or whether it should include some things that are helpful to users, but are not absolutely necessary for WordPress to have all of its functionality.

I’m also interested if the Hosting Team Handbook is the best source-of-truth for these requirements and recommendations to be, since the requirements are defined by core itself.

Do you have any thoughts on the above? Please leave comments on this post!

Interested in feedback in general, but as a bit of recap, here are a few conversation points to start things off:

Should the Hosting Handbook recommend extensions beyond what core requires?
Should Site Health Check recommend extensions beyond what core requires?
Where should requirements and recommendations for core be located?
What changes would you recommend making to the current list?

Thanks everyone — looking forward to the discussion!

+make.wordpress.org/core

#php

Bronson Quick 00:57 on 2019-06-12

1. I do think the HostingHosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their website accessible via the World Wide Web. Handbook should recommend extensions beyond what coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Team builds WordPress. requires. As long as it’s clear that they are optional and not required.
2. No. I think the only extensions should be what core requires to function.
3. Requirements should be located in Site HealthSite Health This WordPress functionality will perform a number of checks on your installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues, and also allows plugins and themes to add their own checks. and recommendations should be in a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party..
4. In terms of additional recommendations I’d definitely recommend opcache. (I guess bcmath too seeing everyone seems to love that one haha 😜). We could recommend memcache and memcached and write some documentation in regards to setting those up with several popular cachingCache A cache is a component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster; the data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewhere. plugins too.
- Yui 20:24 on 2019-09-05
  
  why prefer ‘bcmath’ over ‘gmp’ ? They offer similar functionality.
  Same goes for ‘memcache’ and ‘memcachedMemcached Memcached is a general-purpose distributed memory-caching system. It is often used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching data and objects in RAM to reduce the number of times an external data source must be read. Memcached is free and open-source software.’ they are just helpers for host installed memcached, why not ‘redisRedis Redis (Remote Dictionary Server) is an in-memory data structure store, in-memory key–value database. It is open-source software..’ instead?
  - Bronson Quick 08:59 on 2019-09-06
    
    That’s kinda the point. The tracTrac Trac is an open-source, web-based project management and bug tracking system. Trac integrates with major version control systems including ("out of the box") Subversion and Git. patch I made was to remove BCMath as it’s not used in WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Team builds WordPress. at all. I personally think we should only include the packages core needs to function but others believe we should include things like BCMath.
    
    As for `opcache`, `memcache` and `memcachedMemcached Memcached is a general-purpose distributed memory-caching system. It is often used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching data and objects in RAM to reduce the number of times an external data source must be read. Memcached is free and open-source software.`, they’ll work out with core without additional plugins. I believe `redisRedis Redis (Remote Dictionary Server) is an in-memory data structure store, in-memory key–value database. It is open-source software..` would require a pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. to enable its functionality?
    - Mike Schroder 10:26 on 2019-09-06
      
      As far as I’m aware, neither `memcache` or `memcachedMemcached Memcached is a general-purpose distributed memory-caching system. It is often used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching data and objects in RAM to reduce the number of times an external data source must be read. Memcached is free and open-source software.` are used by coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Team builds WordPress. and require a drop-in to enable objectObject In computer science, an object can be a variable, a data structure, a function, or a method, and as such, is a value in memory referenced by an identifier. cachingCache A cache is a component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster; the data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewhere. with them.
      
      Core will be passively enhanced by `OPcache` if it’s enabled. If it’s not configured well, users can run into problems, but I agree it’d be great to encourage more hosts to us it.
      - Bronson Quick 12:34 on 2019-09-06
        
        Oh yeah! My bad Mike. I totally forgot about the drop-in for `memcache` and `memcachedMemcached Memcached is a general-purpose distributed memory-caching system. It is often used to speed up dynamic database-driven websites by caching data and objects in RAM to reduce the number of times an external data source must be read. Memcached is free and open-source software.` as I’ve automated that!
Pascal Birchler 10:30 on 2019-06-12

1. Makes sense to me.
2. I think so. As long as these are clearly labelled as optional and recommended, that makes sense.
3. In Site HealthSite Health This WordPress functionality will perform a number of checks on your installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues, and also allows plugins and themes to add their own checks.. It would be good if plugins could easily access the Site Health result
4. a) Mentioning the INTL extension as a recommendation
4. b) One thing I want to highlight is that an available extension does not necessarily mean that it’s working. For example, we’ve often ran into issues where hosts disable functions like `curl_multi_init` or even `curl_init`. Or, in the case of the INTL extension, when a serverServer A server is a piece of computer hardware or software that provides functionality for other programs or devices. Typical servers are database servers, file servers, mail servers, print servers, web servers, game servers, and application servers. is running PHPPHP PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a general-purpose scripting language especially suited to web development. PHP code is usually processed on a web server by a PHP interpreter. On a web server, the result of the interpreted and executed PHP code would form the whole or part of an HTTP response. 7.2 but uses a super outdated version of the extension which doesn’t include the functions and constants one would expect. So any site health check for extensions should also check against these things.
- Bronson Quick 00:36 on 2019-06-19
  
  Ooohhh! Massive +1 on the 4. a). I had to created a new Chassis extension for PHPPHP PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a general-purpose scripting language especially suited to web development. PHP code is usually processed on a web server by a PHP interpreter. On a web server, the result of the interpreted and executed PHP code would form the whole or part of an HTTP response. intl when I was working on a clients site in another language as it wasn’t bundled!
Peter Wilson 09:38 on 2019-06-19

Rather than thinking about this question in terms of individual extensions, I’ve been thinking about where the line should be drawn. As a result this doeesn’t answer the questions as set out above, rather how an extension qualifies to be included in the Site HealthSite Health This WordPress functionality will perform a number of checks on your installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues, and also allows plugins and themes to add their own checks. check list:

1. it’s used in WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Team builds WordPress.
2. it’s included in the default PHPPHP PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a general-purpose scripting language especially suited to web development. PHP code is usually processed on a web server by a PHP interpreter. On a web server, the result of the interpreted and executed PHP code would form the whole or part of an HTTP response. build for each version WordPress Core supports, currently the default builds for PHP 5.6+

The aim of the second point is to discourage the use of custom PHP builds that remove features included in the default build: supported custom builds may expand features.

At the moment, WordPress Core includes some complex code to allow hosts to remove features: avoiding DOM Document and filters are two that come to mind.

There is of course a third categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.: extensions it would dandy to use in two major WordPress releases from now. I dub this the chicken and egg problem.

None of this directly addresses @BronsonQuick‘s question about bcmath; hopefully it provides a sound methodology to answer it.
amykamala 22:54 on 2019-06-20

I suggest that a php info feature be added to Site HealthSite Health This WordPress functionality will perform a number of checks on your installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues, and also allows plugins and themes to add their own checks. -> Info in wp-admin outlining what extensions are enabled, required, and recommended. Otherwise listing the extensions, both required and recommended, in the handbook seems sufficient.
Torsten Landsiedel 10:27 on 2019-06-23

4. a) Mentioning the INTL extension as a recommendation

+1 Yes, please! There is already a issue for the Site HealthSite Health This WordPress functionality will perform a number of checks on your installation to detect common configuration errors and known issues, and also allows plugins and themes to add their own checks. pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party.:
https://github.com/WordPress/health-check/issues/333

This would help to solve the NFD/NFC problem I talked about in my WCEU talk:
https://2019.europe.wordcamp.org/session/special-characters-and-where-to-find-them/
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