To be able to access Oracle databases from PHP, you will need to have PHP compiled / linked with the Oracle OCI (oci8) library.

You could use the pre-built PHP 5 from Zend or there are two other ways to get PHP working with OCI8:

1. Install the Oracle Database [Oracle10g] [Oracle9i]
2. Install Oracle Instant Client

If your Oracle database is in another machine, the Oracle Instant Client is a smaller install.

PHP using Oracle Database Server

TODO

PHP using Oracle Instant Client

Tested Environments:

• Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS
• Oracle Instant Client 11.2
• Ubuntu 11.04 x64
• Oracle Instant Client 11.2

Prerequisites:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install php5-dev php-pear libaio1

Instant Client installation requires some environment variables to be able to see the library folder. Edit /etc/environment and add at the end:

# Oracle Instant Client
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib/instantclient_11_2"
TNS_ADMIN="/usr/local/lib/instantclient_11_2"
ORACLE_BASE="/usr/local/lib/instantclient_11_2"
ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE

Then download the Oracle Instant Client from Oracle (x86 or x86-64) (you will need to create an account).

You will need the Basic (48MB) and SDK (600K). The Basic Lite version does not work.

cd /usr/local/lib
sudo unzip <location-of-instant-client-basic>
sudo unzip <location-of-instant-client-sdk>
cd instantclient_11_2
sudo ln -s libclntsh.so.11.1 libclntsh.so

The symbolic link is needed during the compilation step later.

sudo pecl install oci8

You will be prompted for the location of the library:

instantclient,/usr/local/lib/instantclient_11_2

You will be prompted also for the ORACLE_HOME location, type 'all', accept and then insert:

instantclient,/usr/local/lib/instantclient_11_2

PHP5 Instructions

You should now create a new oci8.ini file which will be included when loading php.ini (Editing the php.ini is discouraged):

nano /etc/php5/conf.d/oci8.ini

this will create a blank file; add to this file:

extension=oci8.so

In Ubuntu 13.10, you should create a new oci8.ini in:

nano /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/oci8.ini

this will create a blank file. Then add to this file:

extension=oci8.so

Old Instructions (Maybe PHP4)

If successful, you may now add the following line at the bottom of php.ini

extension=oci8.so

The php.ini is found in 2 places: /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini and /etc/php5/cli/php.ini

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

or

sudo service apache2 restart

Check <?php echo phpinfo() ?> to verify if the oci8 module is available.

Further Reading

* Oracle PHP Wiki