Create a Static Build

Instead of using a local installation of the PHP library, it’s possible to create a static build of FrankenPHP thanks to the great static-php-cli project (despite its name, this project support all SAPIs, not only CLI).

With this method, a single, portable, binary will contain the PHP interpreter, the Caddy web server and FrankenPHP!

FrankenPHP also supports embedding the PHP app in the static binary.

We provide a Docker image to build a Linux static binary:

docker buildx bake --load static-builder
docker cp $(docker create --name static-builder dunglas/frankenphp:static-builder):/go/src/app/dist/frankenphp-linux-$(uname -m) frankenphp ; docker rm static-builder

The resulting static binary is named frankenphp and is available in the current directory.

If you want to build the static binary without Docker, take a look at the macOS instructions, which also works for Linux.

By default, most popular PHP extensions are compiled.

To reduce the size of the binary and to reduce the attack surface, you can choose the list of extensions to build using the PHP_EXTENSIONS Docker ARG.

For instance, run the following command to only build the opcache extension:

docker buildx bake --load --set static-builder.args.PHP_EXTENSIONS=opcache,pdo_sqlite static-builder
# ...

To add libraries enabling additional functionality to the extensions you’ve enabled, you can pass use the PHP_EXTENSION_LIBS Docker ARG:

docker buildx bake \
  --load \
  --set static-builder.args.PHP_EXTENSIONS=gd \
  --set static-builder.args.PHP_EXTENSION_LIBS=libjpeg,libwebp \
  static-builder

To add extra Caddy modules or pass other arguments to xcaddy, use the XCADDY_ARGS Docker ARG:

docker buildx bake \
  --load \
  --set static-builder.args.XCADDY_ARGS="--with github.com/darkweak/souin/plugins/caddy --with github.com/dunglas/caddy-cbrotli --with github.com/dunglas/mercure/caddy --with github.com/dunglas/vulcain/caddy" \
  static-builder

In this example, we add the Souin HTTP cache module for Caddy as well as the cbrotli, Mercure and Vulcain modules.

Tip

The cbrotli, Mercure and Vulcain modules are included by default if XCADDY_ARGS is empty or not set. If you customize the value of XCADDY_ARGS, you must include them explicitly if you want them to be included.

See also how to customize the build

If you hit the GitHub API rate limit, set a GitHub Personal Access Token in an environment variable named GITHUB_TOKEN:

GITHUB_TOKEN="xxx" docker --load buildx bake static-builder
# ...

Run the following script to create a static binary for macOS (you must have Homebrew installed):

git clone https://github.com/dunglas/frankenphp
cd frankenphp
./build-static.sh

Note: this script also works on Linux (and probably on other Unixes), and is used internally by the Docker based static builder we provide.

The following environment variables can be passed to docker build and to the build-static.sh script to customize the static build:

• FRANKENPHP_VERSION: the version of FrankenPHP to use
• PHP_VERSION: the version of PHP to use
• PHP_EXTENSIONS: the PHP extensions to build (list of supported extensions)
• PHP_EXTENSION_LIBS: extra libraries to build that add features to the extensions
• XCADDY_ARGS: arguments to pass to xcaddy, for instance to add extra Caddy modules
• EMBED: path of the PHP application to embed in the binary
• CLEAN: when set, libphp and all its dependencies are built from scratch (no cache)
• NO_COMPRESS: don’t compress the resulting binary using UPX
• DEBUG_SYMBOLS: when set, debug-symbols will not be stripped and will be added within the binary
• MIMALLOC: (experimental, Linux-only) replace musl’s mallocng by mimalloc for improved performance
• RELEASE: (maintainers only) when set, the resulting binary will be uploaded on GitHub