Set up the APM PHP Agent

We officially support Linux systems (glibc, deb and rpm packages) and Alpine Linux (musl libc - apk packages) for x86_64 (AMD64) processors.

The agent supports PHP versions 7.2-8.4.

The agent requires libcurl 7.58 or later.

Install the agent using one of the packages for supported platforms.

rpm -ivh <package-file>.rpm

dpkg -i <package-file>.deb

apk add --allow-untrusted <package-file>.apk

If you can’t find your distribution, you can install the agent by building it from the source. The following instructions will build the APM agent using the same docker environment that Elastic uses to build our official packages.

1. Download the agent source from https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-php/.
2. Execute the following commands to build the agent and install it:

cd apm-agent-php
# for linux glibc - libc distributions (Ubuntu, Redhat, etc)
export BUILD_ARCHITECTURE=linux-x86-64
# for linux with musl - libc distributions (Alpine)
export BUILD_ARCHITECTURE=linuxmusl-x86-64
# provide a path to php-config tool
export PHP_CONFIG=php-config

# build extensions
make -f .ci/Makefile build

# run extension tests
PHP_VERSION=`$PHP_CONFIG --version | cut -d'.' -f 1,2` make -f .ci/Makefile run-phpt-tests

# install agent extensions
sudo cp agent/native/_build/${BUILD_ARCHITECTURE}-release/ext/elastic_apm-*.so `$PHP_CONFIG --extension-dir`

# install automatic loader
sudo cp agent/native/_build/${BUILD_ARCHITECTURE}-release/loader/code/elastic_apm_loader.so `$PHP_CONFIG --extension-dir`

Enable the extension by adding the following to your php.ini file:

extension=elastic_apm_loader.so
elastic_apm.bootstrap_php_part_file=<repo root>/agent/php/bootstrap_php_part.php

To work, the agent needs both the built elastic_apm-*.so and the downloaded source files. So if you would like to build elastic_apm-*.so on one machine and then deploy it on a different machine, you will need to copy both the built elastic_apm-*.so and the downloaded source files.

Please be aware that if the open_basedir option is configured in your php.ini, the installation directory of the agent (by default /opt/elastic/apm-agent-php) must be located within a path included in the open_basedir value. Otherwise, the agent will not be loaded correctly.

We strongly advise against running the agent alongside the xdebug extension. Using both extensions simultaneously can lead to stability issues in the instrumented application, such as memory leaks. It is highly recommended to disable xdebug, preferably by preventing it from loading in the php.ini configuration file.