FrankenPHP: A modern app server for PHP, written in Go

by Kévin Dunglas

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A modern app server for PHP https://frankenphp.dev

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➔ PHP API Platform creator, Symfony maintainer ➔ GO Go core contributor, Mercure.rocks and Vulcain.rocks creator ➔ C PHP core contributor Kévin Dunglas: Polyglot Dev @dunglas

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02 03 04 01 FrankenPHP?! What’s next? Internals Features

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FrankenPHP A modern app server for PHP ➔ Built for containers ➔ Worker mode ➔ 103 Early Hints support ➔ Real-time support (Mercure module) ➔ Compatible with all existing PHP apps: ◆ progressive enhancement

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PHP and Containers

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Containers: Which SAPI? Server Application Programming Interface: interface between the PHP interpreter and web servers ➔ Apache module ➔ FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) ➔ CGI (Common Gateway Interface) ➔ NGINX Unit (not the NGINX you’re used to) ➔ …

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➔ Simple ➔ Web server + PHP = 1 service ➔ Default solution for containers DRAWBACKS: ➔ Works only with Apache ➔ Less performant than FPM Apache Module

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FPM ➔ Most popular SAPI ➔ Supported by most web servers: Caddy, Symfony CLI, NGINX, Apache… DRAWBACKS: ➔ External service ➔ Require a UNIX or a TCP socket ➔ Hard to containerize

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Can We Do Better?!

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➔ Secure and fast ➔ Easy to conﬁgure ➔ Cloud native: API, hot conﬁg reloading… ➔ Automatic HTTPS ➔ HTTP/2, HTTP/3, Early Hints… ➔ Extensible with modules: Mercure, Vulcain, OAuth, OIDC… ➔ Prod ready ➔ Written in Go 😻 Caddy: The New Kid on the Block

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➔ Perfect for containers ◆ Just 1 service ◆ No external dependencies ➔ Built on top of Caddy ◆ All Caddy features and modules ◆ Beneﬁts from Go features ◆ Extensible: in Go, in C, in PHP ➔ Prod, CI and dev FrankenPHP: Modern PHP App Server

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➔ Standalone Go library ➔ Embed PHP in your Go programs ➔ New SAPI for Go net/http ◆ Caddy, Symfony CLI, Traeﬁk, K8S… ◆ Your custom Go app ➔ Caddy module using the library ➔ Unique features The ❤ of FrankenPHP: A New SAPI For Go

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02 03 04 01 FrankenPHP?! Features What’s next? Internals

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➔ Compatible with existing PHP apps! ➔ 1 service, 1 container image 😍 ➔ Also works without Docker ➔ Entirely conﬁgurable ◆ Caddyﬁle ◆ php.ini ➔ Free software (as in free speech ✊, and free beer 🍺) FrankenPHP: At a Glance

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Getting Started

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Getting Started

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FrankenPHP Superpower: The Worker Mode ➔ Boot your application once ➔ Keep it in memory ➔ Process incoming requests without having to boot your app again ➔ Relies on goroutines and channels ➔ Compatible with Symfony Runtime and Laravel Octane (soon) ➔ Somewhat similar to RoadRunner ➔ Unlike RR, uses plain old superglobals

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Worker Script

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Starting the Worker Mode By default, one worker per CPU is started.

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Symfony App in Worker Mode

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FrankenPHP: Worker Benchmark 🧪 ➔ Setup: ◆ Hello World Symfony app (prod mode) ◆ Caddy Web Server (HTTP/2) ◆ 3000 requests, 100 connected users ◆ Benchmark tool: K6 ➔ Average request duration: ◆ FPM: 9.45ms ◆ FrankenPHP (no worker): 12.72ms ◆ FrankenPHP (worker): 2.53ms

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103 Early Hints

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Typical Web Page © Google

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103 Early Hints © Google

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Early Hints: Not Possible With PHP

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Early Hints: Possible With Go

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Early Hints: Supported by FrankenPHP ⚡

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03 01 Features Internals 02 04 FrankenPHP?! What’s next?

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➔ PHP scripts are interpreted ➔ The PHP interpreter is written in C ➔ php-src uses Zend Engine ◆ compiler (with Just In Time) ◆ executor (Virtual Machine) ➔ SAPIs ◆ Pass input from the web server to the PHP engine ◆ Pass output from the the PHP engine to the web server PHP Internals: the Basics

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The embed SAPI

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PHP as a C Library ➔ PHP can be used by C programs as a library ◆ It’s how the Apache module works ➔ The embed SAPI eases the process for simple cases ➔ The library can be linked ◆ dynamically (.so) ◆ statically

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➔ Go is a compiled language ➔ Go programs can call C code ➔ Go and C ﬁles can be compiled in a single program ➔ The resulting binary can be static! ➔ The native package to call C code is called cgo ➔ Using cgo we can embed PHP in Caddy, Symfony CLI and other Go programs! C? Go? Cgo!

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C function to execute a PHP script

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Call the function from Go!

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Tadam!

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➔ Go is especially convenient to build servers and network apps ➔ net/http: native package to create HTTP clients and servers ➔ Production-grade: optimized and secure ➔ Native HTTP/2 (HTTP/3 with a 3rd party lib) ➔ Used by Caddy, Symfony CLI, Kubernetes, Traeﬁk, Google, Cloudﬂare… net/http

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A Web Server in 5 LOC

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A PHP SAPI for Go net/http ➔ SAPI: bridge between a server and the PHP engine ➔ Use cgo to call PHP with data coming from Go’s HTTP messages ➔ Extract data from Go’s http.Request, pass it to PHP ➔ Write data generated by PHP using Go’s http.ResponseWriter

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The Idea

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FrankenPHP SAPI module struct

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Delegating to Go

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We Have a Thread Safety Problem!

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➔ net/http is based on the ﬂagship feature of Go: goroutines ➔ Goroutines are lightweight threads ➔ Goroutines are executed concurrently ➔ Goroutines can run in parallel on diﬀerent CPUs ➔ Go provides user-friendly synchronization mechanisms (channels) Goroutines

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PHP Process-based Model (non-ZTS) 1 PHP process handles only 1 request concurrently. To handle requests simultaneously, start new OS processes. Model of FPM and CLI.

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Thread-based model (ZTS) With ZTS (Zend Thread Safety), the PHP interpreter is isolated into a thread.

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Recompile PHP with --enable-zts and…

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➔ Goroutines are lightweight threads: a mix of real parallelism (system threads) and asynchronous I/O ➔ Several goroutines share the same OS thread ➔ Goroutines are lighter and faster than OS threads… ➔ …but ZTS isn’t enough to ensure PHP memory safety 😱 PHP must run in its own threads! Goroutines Aren’t OS Threads

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Taming the Beast 🐘 (php-src)

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🤩

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No OPcache? 🤔

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SAPIs supported By OPCache…

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Patch coming!

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03 01 What’s next? 02 04 Features FrankenPHP?! Internals

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Available right now: frankenphp.dev github.com/dunglas/frankenphp

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➔ 🧪 Still highly experimental! ➔ Fix the remaining segfaults issues ➔ Test, test and test again ➔ Add support to Laravel Octane ➔ Use it in Symfony CLI ➔ Add Windows support ➔ Contributions welcome! What’s next?!

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Try it, give it a star on GitHub. Thanks! frankenphp.dev @dunglas