I wanted a small webdev setup where I could test some Python CGI code and do some shenanigans with PHP.
Nothing special here and certainly nothing professional - Not a webdev by trade at all!
Let’s delve into setting up that environment.

Apache all the way

The webserver of choice for me is Apache in this setup. Sure, one can use Nginx, Lighttpd or something else entirely - that is up to the reader.
First things first: We need to install Apache and PHP

$ sudo pkg install -y apache24 php85 mod_php85

Hint: FreeBSD provides more PHP versions if the latest is not wanted. Keep that in mind!

And now we enable and start the service.

$ sudo sysrc apache24_enable="YES"
$ sudo service apache24 start

We now have some things to take care of before calling it good.
I want a directory in my $HOME folder which Apache serves to me and the files therein.
First create the directory which will hold our files for Apache to serve.

$ cd ~
$ mkdir public_html

After that we need to tell Apache to serve the given directory.
Open /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.confwith the editor of your choice and uncoment the following lines.

...
LoadModule userdir_module libexec/apache24/mod_userdir.so
...
# User home directories
Include etc/apache24/extra/httpd-userdir.conf
...

Next we want to make sure that PHP scripts get executed. For that we need to create a configuration file.
Fire up your editor of chocie and create /usr/local/etc/apache24/modules.d/001_php.conf with the following contents.

<IfModule dir_module>
        DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
        <FilesMatch "\.php$">
                SetHandler application/x-httpd-php
        </FilesMatch>
        <FilesMatch "\.phps$">
                SetHandler application/x-httpd-php-source
        </FilesMatch>
</IfModule>

This snippet will make it possible to execute PHP scripts.

Reload the webserver to activate the configuration we’ve just done.

$ sudo service apache24 reload

Alright, let’s head over to configuring PHP!

PHP fun

First of all: Let’s copy over the sample php.ini.

$ sudo cp /usr/local/etc/php.ini-production /usr/local/etc/php.ini

Next, edit the just copied config.

[Date]
...
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
; https://php.net/date.timezone
date.timezone = "Europe/Berlin"
...

The only change I’ve done here is setting the correct timezone.
Feel free to change whatever you need! For me, this is all I need for now.

Now, enable and start the PHP-FPM service.

sudo sysrc php_fpm_enable="YES"
sudo service php_fpm start

Create a test PHP file under public_html with the following content - The file being called test.php (Amazing name, I know).

<?php

phpinfo();

Be sure to also make the file executable!

$ chmod +x public_html/test.php

After all that is done, restart Apache and check if the just created PHP file executes correctly.

$ sudo service apach24 restart
$ firefox http://vfbsd/~x/test.php

You should see the output of phpinfo() in your browser.
If not: Double check that everything is installed and configured!

Adding Python to the mix

First things first, we need to install Python.

$ sudo pkg install python

To make it possible for Apache to execute Python scripts we need to enable mod_cgi. This is done via editing http.conf.

$ sudo vim /usr/local/etc/apache24/httpd.conf

...
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
        LoadModule cgi_module libexec/apache24/mod_cgi.so
</IfModule>
...

Uncomment the line shown above and we are all set!

Next we have to edit the UserDir configuration file a last time to make it all work. Open /usr/local/etc/apache24/extra/httpd-userdir.conf with your editor of choice and alter the configuration as shown.

<Directory "/home/*/public_html">
    AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit Indexes
    Options MultiViews Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec ExecCGI
    AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .py 
    Require method GET POST OPTIONS
</Directory>

Make sure to add ExecCGI and the .py extension!

After that, reload Apache.

$ sudo service apache24 reload

The only thing left to do is to create a sample Python script to test if everything is working. Again, use your editor of choice and create test.py - Or any name you like to give said script.

#!/usr/local/bin/python

print ("Content-type:text/html\r\n\r\n")
print ('<html>')
print ('<head>')
print ('<title>Testing</title>')
print ('</head>')
print ('<body>')
print ('<h1>Python Testing Page</h2>')
print ('</body>')
print ('</html>')

Let’s mark the script executable.

$ chmod +x public_html/test.py

All done, let’s open the script in our browser.

$ firefox http://vfbsd/~x/test.py

It works (TM)!

Final words

Of course, this is very much just a little appetizer for what Apache/PHP/Python can do. Apache alone is very versatile and can do many more things - be sure to check out the documentation / MAN pages.

All in all - that is all that I needed. A simple way to create PHP / Python scripts in a directory in my $HOME. A simple setup for a simple coder.

Enjoy!

…and as always:

Stay Open!