How I configured a custom PHP5 build on my Dreamhost account

Dreamhost allows its users to run their own custom builds of php 5. They outline the procedure here (only accessible by Dreamhost customers). Here are details on how I got my custom php5 build running on my account:

1. If you need unixODBC:
   1. Go here and download the newest version of the Debian binaries: unixODBC-x.x.x-x86-linux-deb.tar.gz
   2. to install: cd && tar xzf path/to/unixODBC-2.2.11.tar.gz
2. If you need IMAP (much thanks to this guide in figuring this out):
   1. Go to ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap and download the latest IMAP. It will be named something like imap-2004g.tar.Z
   2. tar xzf imap-2004g.tar.Z
   3. cd imap-2004g
   4. make ldb SSLTYPE=none (say yes to the question it asks)
   5. mkdir lib
   6. mkdir include
   7. cd c-client
   8. cp *.h ../include/
   9. cp *.c ../lib/
   10. cp c-client.a ../lib/libc-client.a
3. Download the latest php5 tarball from here
4. Here is the command I used to configure php5. I started with the configuration used by dreamhost for their php5, which I found from phpinfo(). I then removed things I knew I wouldn’t need, and added a few things I did need: './configure' '--prefix=/home/jjb/' '--enable-fastcgi' '--with-mysql=/usr' '--enable-calendar' '--enable-force-cgi-redirect' '--enable-trans-sid' '--with-gd' '--with-xml' '--with-xsl' '--with-ttf=/usr' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr' '--enable-exif' '--with-xslt' '--with-xslt-sablot=/usr' '--with-dom-xslt=/usr' '--with-jpeg-dir=/usr' '--with-png-dir=/usr' '--with-zlib-dir=/usr' '--enable-ftp' '--enable-mbstring' '--with-mysqli' '--with-gettext' '--with-unixODBC=/home/jjb/' '--with-imap=/home/jjb/src/imap-2004g'
5. make install
6. cp /etc/php5/cgi/php.ini /home/jjb/lib/
7. edit /home/jjb/lib/php.ini and set include_path = ".:/usr/local/php5/lib/php:/home/jjb/lib/php" (so that php can find your local PEAR libraries)
8. I then copied ~/bin/php into the the top of my web directory and named it php.cgi, as dreamhost recommends. You might want to put it into http://example.com/cgi-bin/ or anywhere else.
9. I then added the following to my .htaccess file:
   AddHandler custom-php .php .pcgi

Action custom-php /php.cgi