The command php –ini returns this result:

Configuration File (php.ini) Path: /etc
Loaded Configuration File:         /etc/php.ini

Scan for additional .ini files in: /etc/php.d

Additional .ini files parsed:      /etc/php.d/dbase.ini,
/etc/php.d/json.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysqli.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo_mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo_sqlite.ini,
/etc/php.d/zip.ini

This is a very special instruction for configuring our own special edition of PHP. The steps are configure, make, make install.

Helpful page: http://hacktux.com/compile/php/fedora

Upload tar to: /usr/local/src

tar xjvf tarball.tar.bz2

cd to the new folder created by untarring the tarball.

./configure \
--enable-cli \
--enable-gd-native-ttf \
--enable-magic-quotes \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-safe-mode \
--enable-soap \
--enable-sockets \
--enable-zip \
--prefix=/opt/php5 \
--with-apxs2=/usr/sbin/apxs \
--with-bz2=/usr/bin \
--with-curl \
--with-freetype-dir=/usr \
--with-gd \
--with-gettext \
--with-imap \
--with-imap-ssl \
--with-jpeg-dir=/usr \
--with-kerberos \
--with-ldap=/usr \
--with-libdir=lib64 \
--with-mcrypt=/usr/bin/mcrypt \
--with-mysql=/usr/bin/mysql_config \
--with-mysqli=/usr/bin/mysql_config \
--with-openssl \
--with-png-dir=/usr \
--with-pspell \
--with-snmp \
--with-xpm-dir=/usr \
--with-zlib

http://www.howtoforge.com/apc-php5-apache2-fedora8

Next time I have to remake PHP:

• configuration option “php_ini” is not set to php.ini location
• add “extension=apc.so” to php.ini?

Specifying the location of the module helped:

;MXM Add APC cache
extension=/opt/php5/include/php/ext/apc/apc.so
apc.enabled=1
apc.shm_size = 48

http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/redhat-centos-linux-yum-update-exclude-packages/

Added:

exclude=php* sendmail*

in /etc/yum.conf

If I let yum update PHP, it changes my active php.ini file AND it does not include all of the bells and whistles that phpMyAdmin needs.

sendmail updates are liable to break the link to qmail's sendmail function.