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Mumble Server Ice Scripting with PHP - Setup

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Note: This documentation is quite old and may need some verification or updating.

How to convert Murmur.ice to Murmur.php for Ice >= 3.4.0 : http://doc.zeroc.com/display/Ice/slice2php+Command-Line+Options

How to setup Ice 3.4 for PHP with Apache on Linux (general)

If your Linux distribution offers a binary packet for Ice with PHP (usually the name contains Ice and php) you can skip everything but naming the Murmur.ice slice file in the php.ini (see below). If there is no prepared package you’ll have to try to find binaries for your system or compile Ice yourself and add the extension to PHP and tell PHP where to find the Murmur.ice file.

To add the IcePHP extension to PHP, first check that the file IcePHP.so for linux is in your php extensions folder specified in your php.ini as

extension_dir = /usr/lib/php5/extensions

If it is not, get the corresponding files from ZeroC’s downloads page.

Then either in your php.ini file or in your /etc/php.d or /etc/php5/conf.d folder in ice.ini, add the line

extension=IcePHP.so

At least the Linux RPMs will do this automatically, so check that you’re not doing it a second time.

Second, you have to tell the PHP parser where to find the slice file.

Add

ice.slice = /path/to/Murmur.ice

to your php.ini or other config file (e.g. ice.ini).

Troubleshooting

If you encounter problems, check your Apache log.

If it tells you the PHP extension was compiled on an older api, you have to compile the IcePHP.so from source.

Download Ice-3.4.2.tar.gz from ZeroCs downloads page, untar, cd into PHP, as written in the INSTALL file export the ICE_HOME environment variable pointing to your Ice install dir. If you installed it with an RPM, type

export ICE_HOME=/usr

then make, and in the lib folder, there will be your IcePHP.so file.

One common error is

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: skipping dictionary ::Murmur::UserInfoMap - unsupported key type in Unknown on line 0

This is caused because the .ice file is slightly incompatible with older versions of php-ice. Edit the Murmur.ice file and find the following lines

/** User information map.
  * Older versions of ice-php can't handle enums as keys. If you are using one of these, replace 'UserInfo' with 'byte'.
  */

and perform the substitution mentioned.

How to Setup Ice for PHP with Apache on Debian/Ubuntu ==

Note: For PHP Ice, there are major differences between the Ice versions 3.3 and 3.4. In more detail: 3.3 uses .ice definition files while 3.4 uses generated PHP files.

Thus, depending on the version you are installing, you will have to follow different configuration steps.

At the moment (2012-05-06) the current Debian stable is squeeze, for which the official repositories provide Ice 3.3. For Ubuntu on the other hand, the current stable version 12.04 (LTS) provides Ice 3.4 in its repositories. So make sure you follow the matching instructions.

Short, expert version

  • If php-zeroc-ice version >= 3.4: apt-get install php-zeroc-ice, then add /usr/share/Ice-3.4.2/php/lib to your PHPs include path.
  • If php-zeroc-ice version <= 3.3: apt-get install php-zeroc-ice, then add the ice.slice parameter to with value <pathto>/murmur.ice to your PHPs configuration.

Setup

For the following guide, a set up Apache2 and PHP environment, and a working install of Murmur is assumed.

Step 1 - PHP Ice extension

First we need to install the Ice library for PHP. Execute the following in a root shell:

apt-get update
apt-get install php-zeroc-ice

Step 2 - PHP Setup

Now we need to tell PHP to load the IcePHP extension. Open the file ‘’/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini’’ for editing:

vim /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

OR:

nano -w /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini

Paste the folowing in the dynamic extensions section of the file:

extension=IcePHP.so

Step 3 - Reload and Check

Everything should be set up so let’s restart the servers so they load the updated config files.

Restart your Apache2 daemon:

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Make a file named phpinfo.php in your web root and paste the following:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Open the page in your browser, you should be greeted with PHP’s information page. Search the page for Ice version to verify that the IcePHP extension has loaded.

If you don’t see IcePHP’s version and config info on this page, verify that the file IcePHP.so exists in PHP’s extension_dir (this will also be in your PHP info page). Once you’re sure that the IcePHP extension has loaded, delete the phpinfo.php file for security reasons.

Now we will take a look in the mumble-server log to see if Murmur’s Ice interface is listening:

tail -n10 /var/log/mumble-server/mumble-server.log

If you find a line similar to the following everything is fine and you can now communicate to Murmur via its Ice interface.

<W>2012-03-24 13:37:11.316 MurmurIce: Endpoint "tcp -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6502" running

Step 4 - Setting up Murmur to provide Ice interface

Now open the file ‘’/etc/mumble-server.ini’’ for editing:

vim /etc/mumble-server.ini

OR:

nano -w /etc/mumble-server.ini

Comment the following line to disable DBus:

#dbus=system

Uncomment or paste the following line to enable the Ice interface:

ice="tcp -h 127.0.0.1 -p 6502"

Restart your Mumble server:

/etc/init.d/mumble-server restart

After restarting the daemon Murmur will now listen for Ice requests.

Now you can install and use any of the PHP based [[3rd Party Applications]] compatible with IcePHP version 3.4.

How to setup Ice for PHP with XAMPP on Windows

Pre Setup

Download and install the following packages:

Now configure and start XAMPP.

Create developer environment for Windows

  • Open System in Control Panel
  • On the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables
  • Add the Ice Path to %PATH%

Select the name PATH on user variables and edit. If the name PATH does not exist, select new. Enter now the PATH to your Ice installation dir.

For example: %PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\ZeroC\Ice-3.4.0\bin;%PATH%

Now logout from Windows or restart. After reboot check if included Ice in our environment. Open the CMD and try

slice2php

The Output return the slice2php help.

Configure XAMPP/PHP

Copy the File php_ice.dll from <your path>\ZeroC\Ice-3.4.0\bin to <your_path>\xampplite\php\ext

Edit the php.ini in <your_path>\xampplite\php and add

extension=php_ice.dll
ice.slice=<mumble_path>\Murmur.ice

Now start XAMPP and check the phpinfo().

Using different ice.slice on same host

Sometimes you run two servers of mumble on the same host and you cannot load two slices with different mumble versions on the same time.

The solution is to use ICE profiles, that will require extra files and unfortunately modification of scripts that run the default profile.

Description on Debian etch with apache2, PHP as fcgid and cli.

Creating profiles

  • Lets create profile directory (as root/superuser user), I have created mine at /etc/php5/ice/
  • Then create directories per profile (it will make life easier later) /etc/php5/ice/murmur.1.1.x /etc/php5/ice/murmur.1.2.x
  • To each of the corresponding directory I have placed the Murmur.ice file provided with the installs. You will notice that later upgrades will just consist of copying new files (instead of renaming).
  • time to make profiles.ini file that ICE will use: vi /etc/php5/ice/profiles.ini
  • Insert there below code:
[Murmur11x]
slice=/etc/php5/ice/murmur.1.1.x/Murmur.ice

[Murmur12x]
slice=/etc/php5/ice/murmur.1.2.x/Murmur.ice

This way you got two profiles, first (Murmur11x) is loading slice file for older murmur setups, and the other (Murmurm12x) loads newer slices. Below example of directory structure:

/etc/php5/ice
|-- murmur.1.1.x
|   `-- Murmur.ice
|-- murmur.1.2.x
|   `-- Murmur.ice
`-- profiles.ini

IcePHP.ini

  • Now time to alter /etc/php5/cgi/conf.d/IcePHP.ini, so it will look like this
extension = IcePHP.so
ice.profiles=/etc/php5/ice/profiles.ini

Notice that we are adding ice.profile setting, so that ice knows where to search for profiles.

Default profile is named __default__ and you better avoid to make it.

I got no idea about setting up default ice.slice entry (experience told me to force editing php files anyway, read below)

Changing PHP scripts

Next alter the source code of the php scripts you use. It consists of just altering the one function that tells ICE to load profile. By default the function is ran without parameter, and it looks like:

Ice_loadProfile();

Now we will tell that function to load specific profile that it was designed for. Below example modifications to load different profiles for given ice profile: for older mumble:

Ice_loadProfile('Murmur11x'); // load profile for scripts that talk with murmur 1.1.x

or for new mumble:

Ice_loadProfile('Murmur12x'); // load profile for scripts that talk with murmur 1.2.x

Notice that single quotes are required.

Checking out if it works

Remember to restart apache (your configuration may require it)

See php/apache error logs when something goes wrong.

If you get error like unknown operation getUsers invoked on proxy of type ::Murmur::Server then it means you use old Murmur.ice file. This happens when you try to connect using Murmur.ice from version 1.1.x to Murmur server 1.2.x, which require Murmur.ice 1.2.x. Update Murmur.ice on web server and restart it and then it should work.

Further steps

I suggest you do the same with /etc/php5/cli/conf.d file and scripts that you run from console (crontab).

Altering php.ini error_reporting is advised to disable generating massive amount of warning messages:

error_reporting = E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_WARNING

You can also set up config files for those profile - more info at http://www.zeroc.com/doc/Ice-3.3.1/manual/IcePHP.29.3.html