The phpinfo script is a simple and convenient tool for obtaining complete information about the current PHP installation on the server. Below we will consider the step-by-step process of its creation and use.

Creating a phpinfo.php file

To execute the script, we will need to create a file in the .php format. Its name can be arbitrary, but to avoid unnecessary confusion, we will call it phpinfo.php.

1. Connect to your server via FTP or file manager of the hosting control panel.

2. Go to the directory where your site is located (usually it is /www/yoursite.com/ or similar).

3. Create a new file named phpinfo.php.

4. Add the following code to the file and save the changes:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

The file is created. Now you need to open it in your browser.

Opening the file and interpreting the information

In the address bar, enter the file URL, for example, https://example.com/phpinfo.php, where example.com is your domain.

You will see a page with detailed information about PHP:

The phpinfo page contains many sections. The key ones are:

• PHP Version. Shows the current actual version of PHP. Useful for checking script compatibility with the server:

• Configure Command. List of PHP extensions, such as mysqli, curl, mbstring. Helps to make sure that the necessary modules are active:

• Core. Contains configuration parameters, such as memory_limit, upload_max_filesize, max_execution_time. Also provides a lot of information about PHP variables in the current environment, for example the line disable_functions lists functions that are prohibited for execution. Useful for customizing server settings for your project:

• Environment. Information about the server environment, including PATH variables. Can be useful for diagnosing some problems.

• PHP Variables. Displays headers sent by the server:

Alternative methods

You may find yourself in a situation where you cannot create and execute the phpinfo script on your server - due to some restrictions or lack of rights.

For such cases, there are many alternative ways to obtain the necessary information about the state of PHP on the server.

php -i

A direct alternative to creating a file with a script and executing it in the browser is the php -i command.

Executing it will display all the same information directly in the terminal:

Since its output is very voluminous, it makes sense to immediately use it in combination with grep to search for the desired value. For example:

php -i | grep memory_limit

Which will return us information about the specified PHP limit:

Output
memory_limit => 1024M => 1024M

php -m

If the task is to check the presence or absence of a particular module, there is a much faster way to check than the phpinfo script.

Namely, the php -m command. Using it will return you a list of all active PHP modules. This is important, since the module may be installed on the server, but not activated in the current PHP load.

Output of php -m
[PHP Modules]
bz2
calendar
Core
ctype
curl
date
dom
exif
FFI
fileinfo
filter
ftp
gd
gettext
hash
iconv
igbinary
imagick
imap
ionCube Loader
json
libxml
mbstring
msgpack
mysqli
mysqlnd
openssl
pcntl
pcre
PDO
pdo_dblib
pdo_mysql
PDO_ODBC
pdo_pgsql
pdo_sqlite
pgsql
Phar
posix
readline
Reflection
session
shmop
SimpleXML
sockets
sodium
SPL
standard
sysvmsg
sysvsem
sysvshm
tidy
tokenizer
xml
xmlreader
xmlrpc
xmlwriter
xsl
Zend OPcache
zip
zlib

[Zend Modules]
Zend OPcache
the ionCube PHP Loader + ionCube24

It can also be combined with grep:

php -m | grep pdo

Output
pdo_dblib
pdo_mysql
pdo_pgsql
pdo_sqlite

If the required module is installed but does not load, make sure that the module is enabled in php.ini or in the PHP settings in the panel.