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

https://frankenphp.dev

A new app server and a library to embed PHP in Go.

* Easy to Dockerize
* Early Hints Support
* Worker mode for performance
* Real-time with the built-in Mercure hub
* Symfony integration (Laravel coming soon)

Transcript

1. A modern app server for PHP https://frankenphp.dev
2. ➔ 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
3. 02 03 04 01 FrankenPHP?! What’s next? Internals Features
4. 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
5. PHP and Containers
6. 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) ➔ …
7. ➔ Simple ➔ Web server + PHP = 1 service ➔ Default solution for containers DRAWBACKS: ➔ Works only with Apache ➔ Less performant than FPM Apache Module
8. 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
9. © sergioska FPM and containers
10. Can We Do Better?!
11. ➔ 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
12. ➔ 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
13. ➔ 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
14. 02 03 04 01 FrankenPHP?! Features What’s next? Internals
15. ➔ 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
16. Getting Started
17. Getting Started
18. 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
19. Worker Script
20. Starting the Worker Mode By default, one worker per CPU is started.
21. Symfony App in Worker Mode
22. 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
23. 103 Early Hints
24. Typical Web Page © Google
25. 103 Early Hints © Google
26. Early Hints: Not Possible With PHP
27. Early Hints: Possible With Go
28. Early Hints: Supported by FrankenPHP ⚡
29. 03 01 Features Internals 02 04 FrankenPHP?! What’s next?
30. ➔ 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
31. The embed SAPI
32. 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
33. ➔ 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!
34. C function to execute a PHP script
35. Call the function from Go!
36. Tadam!
37. ➔ 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
38. A Web Server in 5 LOC
39. 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
40. The Idea
41. FrankenPHP SAPI module struct
42. Delegating to Go
43. We Have a Thread Safety Problem!
44. ➔ 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
45. 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.
46. Thread-based model (ZTS) With ZTS (Zend Thread Safety), the PHP interpreter is isolated into a thread.
47. Recompile PHP with --enable-zts and…
48. ➔ 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
49. Taming the Beast 🐘 (php-src)
50. 🤩
51. No OPcache? 🤔
52. SAPIs supported By OPCache…
53. Patch coming!
54. 03 01 What’s next? 02 04 Features FrankenPHP?! Internals
55. Available right now: frankenphp.dev github.com/dunglas/frankenphp
56. ➔ 🧪 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?!
57. Try it, give it a star on GitHub. Thanks! frankenphp.dev @dunglas