If you've followed the instructions and you can't even connect to the DB server, welcome to the Oracle hell. Most of the information you'll find is deprecated, incomplete, not for your platform, unnecessary or just plain wrong.

Typically, you won't need at all those complicate setups you'll read about and they'll probably make things harder. I suggest you get Systernal's "Filemon" utility (for Windows, in Unix you may do with strace) and find out what exact config files and DLLs are being tried by php.exe (or httpd.exe if PHP runs as Apache module or...). Pretty often, the issue is that (e.g.) TNSNAMES.ORA does not have the correct line ending or Apache is looking for a DLL that does not even exist in your hard disc; learning that prevents you to waste time adding more and more useless environmental variables.

Goog luck.

Spending long time in researching how to install this on a freshly installed [Red Hat-based (RHEL, CentOS, Fedora)] Linux, and finally I come to this:

1) Download & install 

#yum install oracle-instantclient-basic
#yum install oracle-instantclient-devel

or 

Download:
oci8-1.4.7.tgz
oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm
oracle-instantclient11.2-devel-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm

#rpm -i oracle-instantclient11.2-basic-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm
#rpm -i oracle-instantclient11.2-devel-11.2.0.3.0-1.x86_64.rpm

2) Check PHP version:

#rpm -qa | grep php

It should looks sth like this:
php-devel-5.3.10-1.w5
php-pdo-5.3.10-1.w5
php-ldap-5.3.10-1.w5
php-cli-5.3.10-1.w5
php-mysql-5.3.10-1.w5
php-5.3.10-1.w5
php-common-5.3.10-1.w5

3) Update if needed by:

#yum --enablerepo=webtatic update php

** Make sure you have php-devel installed before updating to a newer version, or you might have problem to add package back. If it happened, you\\'ll have to reinstall all php packages (sadly I did):

#yum remove php-common
#yum --enablerepo=webtatic install php

4) Remember to install a C compiler for installation use:
#yum install gcc

5) Unzip oci8-1.4.7.tgz:
#tar xvzf oci8-1.4.7

6) Run phpize (php-devel required):
# phpize

7) Setup Config:
# ./configure --with-oci8=shared,instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib

8) Add a sym-link to the SDK header files (Comes with the instantclient-devel)

#ln -s /usr/include/oracle/11.2/client64/ /usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib/include

** The installation defaults to use 1 dir path only, so the missing SDK files need to add back to that directory, by adding a sym-link \\"include\\" under the lib folder.

9) Compile and install:
#make all install

[Please note that I'm installing on a 64-bit platform so links are pointing at client64 instead of client]

Hey guys!!!!

 I have all these problems and when are solved a php show this:

_oci_server ORA-12159:connection text especified is too long

It's simple!!!

  In the TNSNAMES.ORA remove all space, tab, carriage return on the conection string and, wallah!!! All work fine!!!

  More info:

   PHP 5.0.0  with Oci8
   Apache 1.3

Regards,
Romolo (neogodo@yahoo.com.br).
DBA Oracle
Brazil - SP - Sao Paulo

Some notes to save somebody some grief:

Installing the Oracle libraries and access module into an existing PHP5 installation on Debian etch without rebuilding php...

First grab the Linux instantclient from oracle.com - you'll also need the client SDK kit. Here I'm using instantclient 11.1

create a directory for these such as /home/oracle and unpack both of them to that directory.

Go into the oracle directory (and into the instantclient_11_1 directory) and create a symlink:

$ ln -s libclntsh.so.11.1 libclntsh.so

Grab the oci8 PECL package and unpack it somewhere (~/oci).

Make sure you have the following packages (in addition to php5, php5-cli, apache2, etc).

  php5-dev

  libaio1

  php-pear
 

Go to the oci8 directory (~/oci/). 

You need to run 'pecl build' once to create the configure script. 

$pecl build 

But the problem is that pecl build will claim the files are installed and they are not. I wasted half a day on this one. Now go into the oci8-1.3.0 directory and build again by hand: 

$ cd oci8-1.3.0 

$ ./configure --with-oci8=instantclient,/home/oracle/instantclient_11_1 

$ make

Fix any errors/warnings before continuing

Don't make install, which won't work.

$ cp ./modules/oci8.so /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs

Replace 20060613+lfs with whatever module directory has been setup for you in /usr/lib/php5

Create /etc/php5/conf.d/oci8.ini:

----

extension=oci8.so

----

Now run the php cmdline in verbose mode (php -v) and see if everything loaded. Fix it if it didn't.

You may need some env variables setup in your /etc/init.d/apache2 file to make everything work and actually execute queries, but a phpinfo() at this point should show your oci8 extension. See the php.net Oracle pages if you need help with the env variables.

Restart the web server

$ /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

I've had all kinds of errors with RedHat9(yuck), PHP 4.3.4RC1 and Oracle enterprice server 9.2. For some time I thought that --with-oci8 wouldn't work with Oracle9 but that wasn't the case, the solution was many steps.

1) install oracle, might require some tricks, on RedHat9 I had to put this in my .bashrc:
export ORACLE_BASE=/opt/ora9
export ORACLE_HOME=$ORACLE_BASE/product/9.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
export ORACLE_OWNER=oracle
export ORACLE_SID=netadmdb
export ORACLE_TERM=vt100
export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1
export THREADS_FLAG=native
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_BASE/product/9.2/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

2) compile php, use --with-oci8

3) Make an init-script for the oracle9 database server, as default the TNS listener doesn't run so add that on aswell, example:
#!/bin/bash
export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/ora9/product/9.2
export PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/bin:$PATH
export ORACLE_SID=netadmdb
export DISPLAY=:0
oracle_user=oracle
export oracle_user
case $1 in
start)
su - "$oracle_user"<<EOO
sqlplus /nolog<<EOS
connect / as sysdba
startup
EOS
/opt/ora9/product/9.2/bin/lsnrctl start
EOO
;;
stop)
su - "$oracle_user"<<EOO
/opt/ora9/product/9.2/bin/lsnrctl stop
sqlplus /nolog<<EOS
connect / as sysdba
shutdown immediate
EOS
EOO
;;
*)
echo "Usage: ora9 [start|stop]"
;;
esac

4) Configure Apache. For some reason it requires some tweaking with environment variables, in the begining I put those in the PHP-script with putenv, later in the httpd.conf with SetEnv and the mod_env module. But I was told to not do that and instead set them in the init script for Apache. So I copied apachectl to /etc/init.d and edited envvars in $APACHE_PATH/bin. First I added all kinds of env variables until I got it to work, and then I removed them one at a time and came to the following minimal configuration:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/apache2/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
ORACLE_HOME=/opt/ora9/product/9.2
LANG=sv_SE
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH ORACLE_HOME LANG

Earlier I had added NLS_LANG and TNS_ADMIN above those mentioned above (point 1), but it seems those aren't needed really. So no need for TWO_TASK or ORACLE_SID, only needed one is ORACLE_HOME and if you get missing/invalid option for your OCILogon set LANG to something else like I did. Someone earlier said it might have to do with UTF8.

So if you are sure lsncrtl are started and that you have the correct env-variables set in your $APACHE_PATH/bin/envvars you can just use something like:

$iDBConn=OCILogon("user","pass","netadmdb");

in your PHP-script and it should work.
Hope this helps someone.

Regarding compiling with the recently updated OCI8 Extension (http://pecl.php.net/package/oci8).

I ran into problems when statically compiling, such as numerous "undefined reference to `zif_oci_***'" errors.  Since I likely won't be the only one to run into this problem, here's some helpful hints:

If you've previously compiled your php installation, first: make clean

Then replace the existing php-x.x.x/ext/oci8 directory with the latest package from: http://pecl.php.net/package/oci8

./buildconf --force
./config ..
make

# here's what it took to get it going for me on rhel4 on x86_64 w/ 10gr2 and php5.0.5
# hopefully this will save someone a little grief
# first you must install the 10.2 full client in /app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
# follow all the instructions. This part will be a bitch.

# install the instantclient basic and sdk like this
mkdir -p /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib instantclient-basic-linux-x86-64-10.2.0.2-20060228.zip
mkdir -p /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client instantclient-sdk-linux-x86-64-10.2.0.2-20060228.zip
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib/libclntsh.so.10.1 /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib/libclntsh.so

# make the full client use instantclient's files
cd /app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
mv lib oldlib
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib lib
ln -s /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client include

php configure line is: --with-oci8=/app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1/

To compile PHP 4.4.2 with OCI8 / Oracle 9i / AIX 5.2 (64-bit) / GCC

PHP will automatically compile against the Oracle 64-bit libraries, which PHP being a 32-bit app, will cause "make" to fail (though it will configure fine). Here's how to avoid this:

1. replace your PHP's ext/oci8 directory with the latest ext/oci8 directory downloadable from PECL - then remove the old directory entirely

2. rebuild configure by running:

./buildconf --force

...in PHP's root directory. This will rebuild the configure script.

3. using a tool like sed, in your configure file replace all instances of /path/to/oracle/lib with /path/to/oracle/lib32 - note, this may require GNU's autoconf, m4 and gnumake.

4. export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/oracle/lib32

5. ./configure --with-oci-8=/path/to/oracle (and any other options)

Then, the usual make and make install.

I spent several hours tracking down error ORA 24374, which would result from only *SOME* of my select statements.  This error would be caused if I made a query that would return any non-numerical value.  I am running an Apache 1.3.x webserver and PHP 4.2.1.

The fix is to add entries in your httpd.conf file that would export your environment settings.  I added these three lines and everything worked like a charm!
SetEnv ORACLE_HOME  /path/to/oracle/home
SetEnv ORA_NLS33  /path/to/oracle/home/ocommon/nls/admin/data
SetEnv NLS_LANG AMERICAN

Obviously, if your NLS_LANG is different, you should set it to whatever your NLS_LANG actually is.  Ask your friendly DB admin for this information.

Hope this helps someone who treads down the path that I just followed!

Trent

I had a problem loading php_oci8.dll with php 5.2, Apache, and windows XP - a module not loaded error, on every apache restart.
I eventually found that I had to add the oracle instantclient library path to the %PATH% under SYSTEM and not under USER.  Doing that, and then rebooting, fixed the error - as Apache is starting as a service (outside the user setup).

Lost a day on trying to make work oci8 & pdo_oci extensions in php-fpm 5.3 on OpenSuSE 12.2 (64bit) with latest oracle instant client 11.2.0.3.0. 
Any of two works normally with generic instructions. But both extensions caused crash in oci_connect(). 

Solution was simple add ORACLE_HOME variable BEFORE running php-fpm.

/etc/profile.d/oracle.sh
#!/bin/bash
ORACLE_HOME=/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib
NLS_LANG=american_america.utf8
export ORACLE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH NLS_LANG

/etc/init.d/php-fpm
.....
. /etc/rc.status
. /etc/profile.d/oracle.sh # add this after rc.status (note: dot & space)
.....

After "service php-fpm restart" works normally. Hope this helps.

I was experiencing issues with Unicode characters being saved incorrectly to my ORA 10 DB. Issue was tracked to not having a NLS_LANG environment variable specified - set this correctly in the Apache environment and the issue was resolved.

When using PHP on an IIS server (Windows Server 2000+):

After installing the Oracle Instant Client and adding it to the "PATH" Environment Variable, be sure that you also add "Read & Execute" privileges to the Oracle Instant Client directory for the IIS user designated for the site.  This is especially necessary if IIS has been hardened using the IIS Lockdown tool (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd450372(WS.10).aspx) as users must be explicitly granted permissions from the web.

estoreic (note from 15-May-2006 10:54) is right.

there seems to be a problem with the oci8-api-functions in php 4.4.x.

there are error-messages like these in the error_log:
child pid 22297 exit signal Segmentation fault (11)
*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption (out): 0x00000000019f4730 ***
*** glibc detected *** double free or corruption (!prev): 0x0000000001111d90 ***
*** glibc detected *** corrupted double-linked list: 0x0000000001111d50 ***

using php 4.4.x with oracle 10.x is impossible, until you do the following:
1. download latest oci8-package from http://pecl.php.net/package/oci8
2. extract package somewhere
3. go to php-4.4.x-source directory
4. rm -rf ext/oci8
5. cp extraceted oci8-1.2.x directory to/as ext/oci8
6. make distclean
7. ./buildconf --force
8. ./.configure (with the options you need)
9. make
10. only for x86_64:
create pear-install.ini:
-----------------------------------------------
[PHP]

memory_limit = 128M      ; Maximum amount of memory a script may consume (8MB)
------------------------------------------------

11. edit Makefile:
replace:
PEAR_INSTALL_FLAGS = -n -dshort_open_tag=0 -dsafe_mode=0
with:
PEAR_INSTALL_FLAGS = -cpear-install.ini -dshort_open_tag=0 -dsafe_mode=0

12. make install

have fun!
oracle connections will work now!

php5 + Apache 2 + solaris 2.10 + oracle9i (64bits)

'./configure' '--with-oracle=/prod/dba/oraeve/ora9i' '--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs' '--with-zlib' '--with-gd' '--without-mysql' '--with-oci8=/prod/dba/oraeve/ora9i' 

fail with :
ld: fatal : fichier libclntsh.so : wrong elf class : ELFCLASS64 

the solution is between ./configure and make command to edit Makefile and replace /ora9i/lib  with  /ora9i/lib32

all it's ok

CentOS 7 PECL with oci8-2

After documented installation stucks

$ yum install systemtap-sdt-devel
$ export ORACLE_HOME=/usr/include/oracle/XX.X/client64
$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib:/lib:/usr/lib; export $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH
$ export PHP_DTRACE=yes
$ C_INCLUDE_PATH=/usr/include/oracle/XX.X/client64 pecl install oci8
[autodetect]
$ echo extension=oci8.so > /etc/php.d/instantclient.ini
$ systemctl reload https

I had trouble with norwegian characters using oracle 8.7.1 / php 4something and Apache 2.

The only trouble was that '?' appeared instead of the norwegian characters.

The solution to it all was to add this to the apachectl script:

export NLS_LANG="norwegian_norway.WE8ISO8859P1"
export ORACLE_BASE="/home/oracle"
export ORA_NLS33="/home/oracle/ocommon/nls/admin/data"
export ORACLE_TERM="ansi"
export ORACLE_HOME="/home/oracle"
export LANG="no_NO"

I'm not sure if all of these are necessary, but I took no change, and it works now :)

For those of you who would like to install this extension on an RedHat/CentOS server. It is actually pretty simple.

Here is what you have to do:
1) Download the following RPM from Oracle: oracle-instantclient11.2-basiclite-11.2.0.2.0.x86_64.rpm (Version number can be newer and check if you need the 64bit version or not). And then install it on the server.

2) yum install php-oci8

3) And as the last step you edit /etc/sysconfig/httpd and write the following line at the end: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/oracle/11.2/client64/lib/ (Attention: Path changes depending on the version you have downloaded from the Oracle website.)

The OCI8 extension lets you access Oracle Database.

Use 'pecl install oci8' to install for PHP 8.1.

Use 'pecl install oci8-3.0.1' to install for PHP 8.0.

Use 'pecl install oci8-2.2.0' to install for PHP 7.

Use 'pecl install oci8-2.0.12' to install for PHP 5.2 - PHP 5.6.

Use 'pecl install oci8-1.4.10' to install for PHP 4.3.9 - PHP 5.1.

[username@hostname ~]# php -v
^ To see PHP version

Hi, I use Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release
10.2.0.1.0 on a Linux workstation for dev purposes, along
with Apache 2 and PHP5. So far I have used it on Kubuntu 8.04.
To get things working on a recently installed notebook with openSUSE 
11.0 was a bit more complicated. So I hope someone will be able to 
benefit from our experiences. Here is our howto:

# Use the package manager to install the packages php5-pear and
php5-dev, if not installed yet.

# Download the instantclient_11_1, zip files basic, sdk, sqlplus from the Oracle web site

# Switch to user root here, since not all commands to some work sudo

# Unzip these files to /opt/oracle/.
# As a result you will see a dir instantclient_11_1 appearing.

ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libclntsh.so.11.1 \
   /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libclntsh.so  
ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libclntsh.so.11.1 \
   /usr/lib/libclntsh.so
ln -s /opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1/libnnz11.so \
   /usr/lib/libnnz11.so
ldconfig # to make sure the system will be able to find the libs

pecl install oci8 # interactively enter option 1,
# then instantclient,/opt/oracle/instantclient_11_1,
# then enter

# if needed, add extension=oci8.so to your php.ini

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

# finished!

Kind regards,
Nico den Boer

# Here's what it took to get it going for me on Red Hat on 
# x86_32 w/ 10gr2 and php5.1.2
# I sincerely appreciate all of the other poster's notes. 
# It was a combination of a few 
# of them to get mine configured. My note should reflect this:

# install the instantclient basic and sdk like this
# note: the original poster had you install into a lib subdirectory, 
# but when I tried this it couldn't find the sdk files. So I moved 
# the files in lib into the parent directory as
# shown below. Actually I copied them, YMMV
mkdir -p /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client 
    instantclient-basic-linux-x86-32-10.2.0.2-20060331.zip
mkdir -p /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client
unzip -jd /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client 
    instantclient-sdk-linux-x86-32-10.2.0.2-20060331.zip
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/libclntsh.so.10.1 
    /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/libclntsh.so

# make the full client use instantclient's files
cd /app/oracle/product/10.2.0/db_1
mv lib oldlib
ln -s /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client/lib lib
ln -s /usr/include/oracle/10.2.0.2/client include

#php configure line is: 
    ./configure --with-oci8=instantclient,/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client

# I had to do this, or the OCI8 would not compile when 
# I ran make on PHP5.1.2 I did not do this originally when I 
# had the files in the lib sudirectory (see my note above) so 
# that may be the true issue.
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

make

make install

#In apache2 edit the envvars and add
LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/apache2/lib:
    /usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
TNS_ADMIN="/usr/lib/oracle/10.2.0.2/client"
LANG=en_US
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH LANG TNS_ADMIN

#Restart Apache

Jay

I spent ages trying work out why I was getting the following message when when using ocilogon() on Windows 2000 using PHP 4 and 5:

ORA-03106 Fatal two-task communication protocol error

This problem is occurs when PHP cannot find ORACLE client environmental variables.

The environmental variables can be set in several ways:

1. Within the root 'Directory' directive on Apache httpd.conf:

<Directory "d:/path/to/webroot">
  SetEnv ORACLE_BASE "c:/oracle"
  SetEnv ORACLE_HOME "c:/oracle/ora81"
  SetEnv NLS_LANG "american_america.WE8DEC"
  SetEnv NLS_CHARACTERSET "WE8DEC"
  SetEnv NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET "AL16UTF16"
</Directory>

or

2. Within Windows:

Go to the Control Panel>System>Advanced>Environmental Variables

Then enter a name value/pair for each of the variables.

3. Using putenv() statements in the PHP file prior to using ocilogon(). This is not ideal because the statements are required evertime you wish to connect to Oracle.

Problems compiling 5.0.4 with Oracle Instant Client 10? (i.e. cannot find -lirc)

Remove the "-lirc" from sdk/demo/sysliblist and rerun configure.

Great Solaris patch!  Finally built.  Here's some tips on connecting:

Just made this on solaris8 32bit, actually works.

1) put everything in one directory
2) unsetenv ORACLE_HOME
3) set the env vars LD_LIBRARY_PATH and SQLPATH and TNS_ADMIN(if you have it) to that directory.
4) use one of the other easy connection notations here

http://www.oracle.com/technology/
docs/tech/sql_plus/10102/readme_ic.htm

These env vars worked when put at the top of apachectl script as well.

To build you may have to fake it out with an ORACLE_HOME var,  but unset it later.  You may also have to fake out the build by putting header files where it is looking for them,  e.g. in the rdbms/demo directory or some such other place.

When running though,  make sure you have only the files required in only one directory.

Oracle has not put up a link to the 32bit solaris sqlplus--you have to guess it--it's there though:

http://download.oracle.com/otn/solaris/instantclient/
instantclient-sqlplus-solaris32-10.1.0.3.zip
  
...and don't forget to add ".world" on to the end of your SID. It's very common to have to specify DBNAME.WORLD to connect.

For those trying to use the Oracle Instant Client 10g in a win32 environment, heres a nice easy howto. If you fully read the docs properly and understand what your reading you will be able to set it up, but if like me you want a quick easy fix, heres how I did it.

1. Download and install the Oracle Instant Client to where ever (lets say  c:\ora\client  )
2. Add your connect info, copy a previously created or provided tnsnames.ora file to the above directory.
3. Change Path in the Environment Variables area to add this directory to the path. ie.  c:\ora\client;%SystemRoot%;<and so on>
4. Open regedit and add a Key called ORACLE to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
5. To the ORACLE key add a string value called TNS_ADMIN and assign it the directory above (ie. c:\ora\client )  So you end up with KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\TNS_ADMIN = c:\ora\client
6. Set php to use Oci8 extension and bobs your uncle
7. Reboot.

Option 7 was required as the oci8 extension or php wouldn't pick up the path change. Also my problem was how to use other programs like sqlplus without creating extra Environment Variables etc the TNS_ADMIN / tnsnames.ora part makes that simpler and allows you to call things the same as you would before.

PS: This should apply to all the Instant Clients. I haven't tried it with any others but 10g though.

Hope this helps.

If you get your connectivity working with putenv on ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME, but you do not want to use putenv because you want safemode on. You will need to pass these from your environment variables.  Somehow setenv in httpd.conf did not do the trick for me... the values are set but the connectivity does not work.  Then you will need to set the environment in your /etc/init.d/apachectl or /etc/profile and use a "PassEnv ORACLE_HOME ORACLE_SID" directive in httpd.conf so that these variables are picked up by php.

However, when you suexec in Apache 2.0, the server will only allow you to pass a given set of variables which are defined in the apache source code in the file apache-dir/support/suexec.c

In order to pass ORACLE_SID and ORACLE_HOME to PHP you need to add these to that file.  The relevant changed piece of code where I added "ORACLE_" looks something like this:

char *safe_env_lst[] =
{
    /* variable name starts with */
    "HTTP_",
    "SSL_",
    "ORACLE_",

    /* variable name is */
...

You will have to do a "make clean", "./configure", "make", "make install".  Do not forget to do the "make clean" or the apache changes will not be picked up.

Here is a nice php test script :)

<?php // test-oracle.php

    function dump_array($a_value)
    {
        reset($a_value);
        for ( $s_str = '' ; list($s_key, $x_value) = each($a_value) ;  )
        {
            $s_str .= "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;".
                      "<span style=\"color:green\">[</span>$s_key<span style=\"color:green\">]</span> = ".
                      "<span style=\"color:red\">[</span>$x_value<span style=\"color:red\">]</span><br />"; 
        }
        reset($a_value);
        echo $s_str;
    }

#putenv("ORACLE_SID=ORTD");
#putenv("ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/9.2.0.1.0");
$ORACLE_SID = getenv("ORACLE_SID");
$ORACLE_HOME = getenv("ORACLE_HOME");
echo "ORACLE_SID = $ORACLE_SID<br>";
echo "ORACLE_HOME = $ORACLE_HOME<br>";

    $cn = ociplogon('scott', 'tiger');
echo "cn = $cn<br />\n";
    $st = ociparse($cn, "select tname from tab");
echo "st = $st<br />\n";
    $ex = ociexecute($st,OCI_COMMIT_ON_SUCCESS);
echo "ex = $ex<br />\n";
    $mr = ocifetchinto($st,$xx,OCI_ASSOC);
    while ( $mr )
    {
        dump_array($xx);
        $mr = ocifetchinto($st,$xx,OCI_ASSOC);
    }
    $fr = ocifreestatement($st);
echo "fr = $fr<br />";
    ocicommit($cn);
    ocilogoff($cn);
?>

Warning: ocilogon(): _oci_open_session: OCIHandleAlloc OCI_HTYPE_SVCCTX: OCI_INVALID_HANDLE can also be caused by running the webserver with an ORACLE_HOME of a (radically?) different version than PHP was linked against. 

I experienced this when I accidently used an Oracle 8 ORACLE_HOME for a PHP that was linked against Oracle 9.

I had a little problem with ocilogon but only with RedHat 8.0. It always returned some kind of error during connection like 'OCISessionBegin - ... invalid character', or 'OCISessionBegin - ... missing or invalid option in ...'

I have finally found what is this problem! You have to change your LANG enviroment variable disabling UTF-8. Example: LANG=en_US.UTF-8 should become LANG=en_US.

Running Oracle 9i on a 
Solaris 9 (64 bit) platform with a Sun Server E250:
Apache version 1.3.27
PHP version 4.3.1

I was first getting "...wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64.."
while doing a ./configure with the --with-oci8 and --with-oracle parameters.

After some unsuccessfull searched I renamed the $ORACLE_HOME/lib to $ORACLE_HOME/lib.org and then renamed the
$ORACLE_HOME/lib32 to $ORACLE_HOME/lib

Thereafter it went passed this config, but now failed on 
not being able to find a libwtc9.so file which was in the
$ORACLE_HOME/lib directory  (this message was displayed in the debug.log in the php source directory).

After setting the Environment variable:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME/lib
I was able to compile without any errors and 'make' and 'make install' ran smoothly.

I only had to add the php type in the httpd.conf (in your apache conf directory eg. /usr/local/apache/conf)..
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
to get the php to work again...

I had to then reverse the $ORACLE_HOME/lib swop on top since php was now having problems with the 32 bit version of the library...so switched it back to 64 and my php script worked....

Hope this helps some out there with similar problems..

Cheers

Configuring/Compiling PHP as a DSO with Oracle support from source on a Sun Solaris 8 box.  We had already installed Oracle 9.2.0 client tools.

1. Make sure the following tools are installed

    autoconf
    automake
    bison
    flex
    gcc
    make
    gzip
    
    They can be downloaded from http://www.sunfreeware.com.
    
2.  Make sure Apache is installed with DSO support.  We ran the Apache configure/compile like so:

    LIBS=-lpthread ./configure \
    --prefix=/usr/local/apache \
    --enable-module=most \
    --enable-shared=max
    
    
    make
    make install
    
3.  If you haven't already, install the Oracle client tools.
4.  Make sure the following environment variables are set correctly and are accessible by all users.  We set them in /etc/profile.

    ORACLE_HOME
    ORACLE_BASE
    NLS_LANG
    ORA_NLS33
    ORACLE_TERM
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH
    
    (technically, only $ORACLE_HOME is required, but you'll want to set the rest in order to make sure things run smoothly afterward)
    
5.  Make sure '/usr/ccs/bin' is in your path.  If not, add it.
6.  Unpack PHP source (php-4.2.3):

    gunzip php-4.2.3.tar.gz
    tar xvf php-4.2.3.tar
    cd php-4.2.3

    
7.  Run PHP configure like so :

    CC=gcc ./configure --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs \
    --with-config-file-path=/etc \
    --with-mysql \
    --enable-ftp \
    --with-oci8=/path/to/ORACLE_HOME \
    --with-oracle=/path/to/ORACLE_HOME \
    --enable-sigchild
    
8.  Run make:  make
9.  Run this as root:  make install
10.  Change the LoadModule line in httpd.conf to include the fully qualified path.  For us:

    LoadModule php4_module        /usr/local/apache/libexec/libphp4.so
    
11.  Make sure the PHP files types are recognized in your httpd.conf file:

    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
    AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps
    
12.  Test the configuration:

    /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl configtest
    
    It should return "Syntax OK"
    
13.  Bounce Apache:

    /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl restart
    
    
14.  Here's a simple PHP script to test the setup.  If you don't have access to the default tables Oracle provides, change the connections/tablenames/fields to match your setup:

    <?php

    $db_conn = ocilogon("scott", "tiger");

    $cmdstr = "select ename, sal from emp";
    $parsed = ociparse($db_conn, $cmdstr);
    ociexecute($parsed);
    $nrows = ocifetchstatement($parsed, $results);
    echo "Found: $nrows results<br><br>\n";

    echo "<table border=1 cellspacing='0' width='50%'>\n";
    echo "<tr>\n";
    echo "<td><b>Name</b></td>\n";
    echo "<td><b>Salary</b></td>\n";
    echo "</tr>\n";

    for ($i = 0; $i < $nrows; $i++ ) {
          echo "<tr>\n";
          echo "<td>" . $results["ENAME"][$i] . "</td>";
          echo "<td>$ " . number_format($results["SAL"][$i], 2). "</td>";
          echo "</tr>\n";
    }

    echo "</table>\n";

    ?>

Better to insert needed variables into apache(!) (or your webserver - respectively) start script. 

For example on UNIX systems /etc/init.d/apache would contain following lines before anything else:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -f ~oracle/.profile ]; then
        source ~oracle/.profile
fi

The ~oracle/.profile has the appropiate settings to start an Oracle database so it is always up-to-date for PHP, too. (If settings are changed, don't forget to restart your webserver.) This way you just no need to worry what to include or define for PHP.

In Ubuntu the setting is in file /etc/apache2/envvars

One simple but useful note:check whether your TNS Listener is running! By default, it's not started automatically when an Oracle instance is started. Login as oracle then type :

lsnrctl START

After it's started, I can sucessfully run the sample code on this page! I used to got ora-12514 error before doing this.

check your tnsnames.ora permission.

ex)
ORACLE_HOME = /home/oracle/oracle

chmod 755 /home/oracle/oracle/network/admin -R

Yahoo!!!!!! I solved it!!!

couple of notes about startup/shutdown on linux:  (redhat, maybe others)

export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libpthread.so

Caused the start/stop script to fail to stop the httpd process.  
The LD_PRELOAD environment var caused the 'ps' command to core dump.  I went bald figuring that out.

Easiest fix I could think of was to move all the oracle/php varialble exports so they are only set in the start section of the httpd script.

Never thought setting those vars globally in the script would cause problems.  That's what I get for thinking...

One other note:  Make sure the httpd process is shutdown before Oracle.

eg: 
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K15httpd
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K25Oracle

Lingering connections to oracle may cause shutdown to take forever.

gl & hf

-Joe

In addition to the earlier posts here is a further explaination;

Problem: Regular and Remote authentication does not work using Windows 2000 + PHP and Oracle 8i, 9i.

Secondary Issue if using Oracle 9.2.0.1
     When using Oracle 9.2.0.1 the Error structure returned by Oracle is different than expected by PHP. As a result there will be no legible error message other than the following;
     Warning: _oci_open_server: in ...

Using Oracle 9.0.1.1 the error message returned is any of the following depending on your situation;
     
Warning: _oci_open_server: ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed in ...
Warning: _oci_open_server: ORA-12154: TNS:could not resolve service name in ...
Warning: _oci_open_server: ORA-12505: TNS:listener could not resolve SID given in connect descriptor in ...
     
Resolution:
In order to get this to work properly you need to do the following;
In reference to ORA-12638: Credential retrieval failed in ... 
you need to edit your sqlnet.ora file and change the 
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NTS) to
SQLNET.AUTHENTICATION_SERVICES = (NONE)
The reason is that using NTS validation on a Windows 2000 machine essentially means Kerberos.
Using (NONE) will tell oracle not to expect kerberos "Credentials" as a means of validation. In turn it will use the oracle authentication for a database user.

In reference to ORA-12154 and ORA-12505 you need to do the following;
In your php code you are using to connect you need to copy the section in tnsnames.ora 
into a variable. 
For example;
<?php
putenv("ORACLE_SID=TESTDB");
//putenv("ORACLE_HOME=/oracle/ora90");
//putenv("TNS_ADMIN=/oracle/ora90/network/admin");
$username = "scott";
$passwd = "tiger";
$db="(DESCRIPTION=
           (ADDRESS_LIST=
             (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)
               (HOST=yourTargetMachine)(PORT=1521)
             )
           )
             (CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=TESTDB))
      )";
$conn = OCILogon($username,$passwd,$db);
if (!$conn)
{
    echo "Connection failed";
    echo "Error Message: [" . OCIError($conn) . "]";
    exit;
}
else
{
    echo "Connected!";
}
...
?>
I left the ORACLE_HOME and TNS_ADMIN putenv lines commented out and your need for them depends on which web server you are using. If you are using Apache, you may need both.
If you are using Microsoft IIS you may need ORACLE_HOME. Putting it in can't hurt and it appears PHP may read them if they are there but either way you should be working at this 
point.

Live long and prosper.