• The PHP source distribution http://www.php.net/downloads.php
• The latest Apache source distributionhttp://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
• A working PHP-supported database, if you plan to use one ( For example MySQL, Oracle etc. )
• Any other supported software to which PHP must connect (mail server, BCMath package, JDK, and so forth)
• An ANSI C compiler
• Gnu make utility − you can freely download it athttp://www.gnu.org/software/make

• If you haven't already done so, unzip and untar your Apache source distribution. Unless you have a reason to do otherwise, /usr/local is the standard place.

gunzip -c apache_1.3.x.tar.gz
tar -xvf apache_1.3.x.tar

• Build the apache Server as follows

cd apache_1.3.x
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/apache --enable-so
make
make install

• Unzip and untar your PHP source distribution. Unless you have a reason to do otherwise, /usr/local is the standard place.

gunzip -c php-5.x.tar.gz
tar -xvf php-5.x.tar
cd php-5.x

• Configure and Build your PHP, assuming you are using MySQL database.

./configure --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs \
            --with-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql
make
make install

• Install the php.ini file. Edit this file to get configuration directives −

cd ../../php-5.x
cp php.ini-dist /usr/local/lib/php.ini

• Tell your Apache server where you want to serve files from, and what extension(s) you want to identify PHP files A .php is the standard, but you can use .html, .phtml, or whatever you want.
  • Go to your HTTP configuration files (/usr/local/apache/conf or whatever your path is)
  • Open httpd.conf with a text editor.
  • Search for the word DocumentRoot (which should appear twice), and change both paths to the directory you want to serve files out of (in our case, /home/httpd). We recommend a home directory rather than the default /usr/local/apache/htdocs because it is more secure, but it doesn.t have to be in a home directory. You will keep all your PHP files in this directory.
• Add at least one PHP extension directive, as shown in the first line of code that follows. In the second line, we.ve also added a second handler to have all HTML files parsed as PHP.

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
AddType application/x-httpd-php .html

• Restart your server. Every time you change your HTTP configuration or php.ini files, you must stop and start your server again.

cd ../bin
./apachectl start

• Set the document root directory permissions to world-executable. The actual PHP files in the directory need only be world-readable (644). If necessary, replace /home/httpd with your document root below −

chmod 755 /home/httpd/html/php

• Open a text editor. Type: <?php phpinfo(); ?>. Save this file in your Web server's document root as info.php.
• Start any Web browser and browse the file.you must always use an HTTP request (http://www.testdomain.com/info.php or http://localhost/info.php or http://127.0.0.1/info.php) rather than a filename (/home/httpd/info.php) for the file to be parsed correctly