[Ubuntu] How to add PHP extension after installed PHP?

Let say you installed PHP and run it for a month, but now you want to use curl in PHP.

But so bad that you didn't install this extension when you installed PHP. That is to say,

now you want to add PHP extension.

Here is an example to install curl extension. 

apache2 is in /usr/local/apache2 

php is in /usr/lib/php5/

1. Install the CURL

Download the curl source code from: http://curl.haxx.se/download, here is curl-7.17.1.tar.gz.

Then uncompress and install it.

tar -zxf curl-7.17.1.tar.gz
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/curl
sudo make
sudo make test
sudo make install

Here we install the curl to /usr/local/curl

2. Install the php5-curl

*Note: You should have the php source code, otherwise the steps can't not go on. Assume that the PHP source code

is in ~/Downloads/php-5.2.10-src, and you should have installed the phpize.

cd ~/Downloads/php-5.2.10-src/ext/curl/
phpize
./configure --with-php-config=php-config --with-curl=/usr/local/curl
sudo make
sudo make test
sudo make install

Then you will find curl.so in ~/Downloads/php-5.2.10-src/ext/curl/modules. Copy it to the php extension folder, here is /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/

sudo cp ~/Downloads/php-5.2.10-src/ext/curl/modules/curl.so /usr/lib/php5/20060613+lfs/curl.so

3. Modify the php.ini file

add the code to php.ini

extension=curl.so

4. restart the apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Then the curl extension is installed.