- Disabling xDebug in Production
- Start Command
- Docker Compose
- Helper Script
- Try it Out
- Looking for a deeper dive into Docker?
- Configure Xdebug
- Configure Xdebug in PhpStorm
- Check Xdebug installation
- Define Xdebug behaviour
- Configure Xdebug for using in the On-Demand mode
- Configure Xdebug for using in the Just-In-Time mode
- Command-line scripts
- Web server debugging
- Configure Xdebug running in a Docker container
- Configure Xdebug running on a Vagrant instance
Disabling xDebug in Production
We see how we can enable or disable the Xdebug PHP module based on the application environment.
The last thing I like to do is automatically enable or disable the Xdebug module based on the application environment.
This means Xdebug won’t just be disabled (turned off) in production, the module itself won’t even be loaded.
In any other environment, Xdebug will be enabled and configured.
Start Command
We start by editing the start-container script to automatically enable or disable xdebug based on a new variable APP_ENV .
If it’s «production» or «prod», it disabled xdebug. Otherwise it enabled it.
This takes advantage of ubuntu/debian’s PHP setup where it uses symlinks to enable or disable PHP modules, depending on the relevant PHP SAPI (fpm, cli, apache2).
#!/usr/bin/env bash if [ ! "production" == "$APP_ENV" ] && [ ! "prod" == "$APP_ENV" ]; then # Enable xdebug ## FPM ln -sf /etc/php/7.0/mods-available/xdebug.ini /etc/php/7.0/fpm/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini ## CLI ln -sf /etc/php/7.0/mods-available/xdebug.ini /etc/php/7.0/cli/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini else # Disable xdebug ## FPM if [ -e /etc/php/7.0/fpm/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini ]; then rm -f /etc/php/7.0/fpm/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini fi ## CLI if [ -e /etc/php/7.0/cli/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini ]; then rm -f /etc/php/7.0/cli/conf.d/20-xdebug.ini fi fi # Config /etc/php/7.0/mods-available/xdebug.ini sed -i "s/xdebug\.remote_host\=.*/xdebug\.remote_host\=$XDEBUG_HOST/g" /etc/php/7.0/mods-available/xdebug.ini php -S 0.0.0.0:80 -t /var/www/html
Docker Compose
Once that’s set, we can update the docker-compose.yml file to incorporate the new APP_ENV environment variable:
version: '2' services: app: build: context: ./ dockerfile: Dockerfile image: xdebug-example:latest environment: APP_ENV: "$" XDEBUG_HOST: $ volumes: - ./app:/var/www/html ports: - "80:80"
Helper Script
Finally, we can update our helper script to set the APP_ENV variable. It defaults to «local», but we can set it to whatever we want on the fly.
#!/usr/bin/env bash # Set environment variables for dev export XDEBUG_HOST=$(ipconfig getifaddr en1) # Specific to Macintosh export APP_ENV=$ if [ $# -gt 0 ]; then docker-compose "$@" else docker-compose ps fi
Try it Out
We’re ready to try this out!
# Spin down any running containers ./develop down # Rebuild the image to suck in latest `start-container` file ./develop build # Turn on containers, let it use the # default "local" environment - xdebug is enabled! ./develop up -d ./develop exec app php --info | grep remote_enable # Spin containers down ./develop down # Check that xdebug is not present/enabled when APP_ENV is # set to "production" APP_ENV=production ./develop up -d ./develop exec app php --info | grep remote_enable
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Configure Xdebug
The output should list Xdebug among the installed extensions:
Create a php file containing the following code:
Configure Xdebug in PhpStorm
Check Xdebug installation
- Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select PHP .
- Check the Xdebug installation associated with the selected PHP interpreter:
- On the PHP page, choose the relevant PHP installation from the CLI Interpreter list and click next to the field. The list shows all the PHP installations available in PhpStorm, see Configure local PHP interpreters and Configure remote PHP interpreters.
- The CLI Interpreters dialog that opens shows the following:
- The version of the selected PHP installation.
- The name and version of the debugging engine associated with the selected PHP installation (Xdebug or Zend Debugger). If no debugger is configured, PhpStorm shows the corresponding message:
Alternatively, open the Installation Wizard, paste the output of the phpinfo() , and click Analyze my phpinfo() output . Learn more about checking the Xdebug installation in Validate the configuration of a debugging engine.
Define Xdebug behaviour
- In the IDE settings ( Ctrl+Alt+S ), select Debug under the PHP node to open the Debug page.
- In the Xdebug area, specify the following settings:
- Debug port : appoint the port through which the tool will communicate with PhpStorm. This must be the same port number as specified in the php.ini file:
- Ignore external connections through unregistered server configurations : select this checkbox to have PhpStorm ignore connections received from hosts and through ports that are not registered as deployment server configurations. When this checkbox is selected, PhpStorm does not attempt to create a deployment server configuration automatically.
- Break at first line in PHP scripts : select this checkbox to have the debugger stop as soon as connection between it and PhpStorm is established (instead of running automatically until the first breakpoint is reached). Alternatively turn on the Run | Break at first line in PHP scripts option from the main menu.
- Max. simultaneous connections : use this spin box to limit the number of external connections that can be processed simultaneously.
By default, PhpStorm only listens for incoming IPv4 connections. To enable IPv6 support, you need to make adjustments in PhpStorm JVM options:
- Select Help | Edit Custom VM Options from the main menu.
- In the .vmoptions file that opens, delete the -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true line.
- Restart PhpStorm.
Configure Xdebug for using in the On-Demand mode
PhpStorm supports the On-Demand mode, where you can disable Xdebug for your global PHP installation and have it enabled automatically on demand only when you are debugging your command-line scripts or when you need code coverage reports. This lets your command line scripts (including Composer and unit tests) run much faster.
- Disable Xdebug for command-line scripts:
- In the Settings dialog ( Ctrl+Alt+S ), go to PHP .
- From the PHP executable list, choose the relevant PHP interpreter and click next to it. In the CLI Interpreters dialog that opens, click the Open in Editor link next to the Configuration file: file. Close all the dialogs and switch to the tab where the php.ini file is opened.
- In the php.ini file, find the [xdebug] section and comment the following line in it by adding ; in preposition:
- Open the CLI Interpreters dialog and click next to the PHP executable field. PhpStorm informs you that debugger is not installed:
- To enable PhpStorm to activate Xdebug when it is necessary, specify the path to it in the Debugger extension field, in the Additional area. Type the path manually or click and select the location in the dialog that opens.
Configure Xdebug for using in the Just-In-Time mode
PhpStorm supports the use of Xdebug in the Just-In-Time (JIT) mode so it is not attached to your code all the time but connects to PhpStorm only when an error occurs or an exception is thrown. Depending on the Xdebug version used, this operation mode is toggled through the following settings:
- Xdebug 2 uses the xdebug .remote_mode setting, which has to be set to jit .
- Xdebug 3 uses the xdebug.start_upon_error setting, which has to be set to yes .
The mode is available both for debugging command-line scripts and for web server debugging.
Depending on whether you are going to debug command-line scripts or use a Web server, use one of the scenarios below.
Command-line scripts
For debugging command-line scripts, specify the custom -dxdebug.remote_mode=jit (for Xdebug 2) or -dxdebug.start_upon_error=yes (for Xdebug 3) directive as an additional configuration option :
- Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open the IDE settings and select PHP .
- From the PHP executable list, choose the relevant PHP interpreter and click next to it.
- In the CLI Interpreters dialog that opens, click next to the Configuration options field in the Additional area.
- In the Configuration Options dialog that opens, click to add a new entry.
Web server debugging
- Make sure that the debugging engine on your local or remote web server is properly configured. For details, see Validate the configuration of a debugging engine.
- Open the php.ini file which is reported as loaded and associated with Xdebug.
- In the php.ini file, find the [xdebug] section.
Configure Xdebug running in a Docker container
To configure Xdebug running in a Docker container, provide the Xdebug-specific parameters in the Dockerfile , for example:
RUN pecl install xdebug \ && docker-php-ext-enable xdebug && echo «xdebug.mode=debug» >> /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini \ && echo «xdebug.client_host = host.docker.internal» >> /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini
In this example, we’re modifying /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini providing the mode and client_host Xdebug parameters.
Note that the xdebug.client_host value should be replaced with the IP address of the machine where PhpStorm is running, which is accessible from the Docker container. If you are using Docker for Windows or Docker for Mac, you can set xdebug.client_host to host.docker.internal , which automatically resolves to the internal address of the host, letting you easily connect to it from the container.
RUN pecl install xdebug \ && docker-php-ext-enable xdebug && echo «xdebug.remote_enable=on» >> /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini \ && echo «xdebug.remote_host = host.docker.internal» >> /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini
In this example, we’re modifying /usr/local/etc/php/conf.d/docker-php-ext-xdebug.ini providing the remote_enable and remote_host Xdebug parameters.
Note that the xdebug.remote_host value should be replaced with the IP address of the machine where PhpStorm is running, which is accessible from the Docker container. If you are using Docker for Windows or Docker for Mac, you can set xdebug.remote_host to host.docker.internal , which automatically resolves to the internal address of the host, letting you easily connect to it from the container.
Configure Xdebug running on a Vagrant instance
To configure Xdebug running on a Vagrant instance, connect to the Vagrant machine and provide the Xdebug-specific parameters in the php.ini file:
[xdebug] zend_extension=»Note that the xdebug.client_host value is 10.0.2.2 . This is the gateway used in the default Vagrant setup, which allows connecting from the instance to host where PhpStorm is running.
[xdebug] zend_extension=»Note that the xdebug.remote_host value is 10.0.2.2 . This is the gateway used in the default Vagrant setup, which allows connecting from the instance to host where PhpStorm is running.