The Bakery Everything CakePHP

I really love CakePHP. As I�m primary a Windows developer, I am very interested in being able to run my CakePHP web applications under IIS. For this reason I spent an afternoon trying to make it working under the Microsoft web server. In this article I explain how you can achieve the same result.

1. First of all download the URL Rewrite Filter for IIS (it's free and open source). Since it seems the official web site (http://www.iismods.com/) has been closed, I have managed to publish a copy of the filter on my company web site. You can download it from the following URL:

http://www.creativepark.it/downloads/iismod_rewrite.zip

2. The installation is pretty straight forward.

• First copy the mod_rewrite.dll and mod_rewrite.ini files in a directory. For this article I use C:\Inetpub\.
• Open the IIS Management Console. Under Windows XP you can start it clicking on Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Internet Information Services. Otheriwse you can execute "%SystemRoot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc" with Start -> Run...
• Select the web site on which you want to install the URL Rewrite Filter, open the Action men� and then click on Properties.
• Select the ISAPI Filter tab and click on Add.
• Insert a name for the filter (i.e. URL Rewrite Filter) and select the the mod_rewrite.dll using the Browse... button (i.e. C:\Inetpub\mod_rewrite.dll).

3. Edit the mod_rewrite.ini as follows:

Download code Debug 0
Reload 5000
RewriteRule ^/$    /index.php?REQUEST_URI=index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?REQUEST_URI=$1        [L]
4. Close the IIS Management Console and restart the web server. You can use the included restart_iis.bat batch script, the IIS Management Console or the Services Management Console.

5. Add the following code at the beginning of the index.php file of CakePHP:

Download code /* Begin IIS MOD_REWRITE Code */
$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] = $_GET['REQUEST_URI'];
unset($_GET['REQUEST_URI']);
/* End IIS MOD_REWRITE Code */
If you have correctly followed the above steps you should be able to run your CakePHP web applications under IIS.

Support for Virtual Folders

Under client Windows Operating Systems (i.e. Windows 2000/XP Pro), IIS allows to run only one web site. If you need to test multiple web applications, you can use the Virtual Folders. For instance, if you want to put a CakePHP web application into a /cakephp Virtual Folders, you have to edit the mod_rewrite.ini file as follows:

Download code Debug 0
Reload 5000
RewriteCond HTTP_HOST localhost
RewriteRule ^/cakephp/?$    /cakephp/index.php?REQUEST_URI=index.php [L]
RewriteRule ^(/cakephp/.*)$ /cakephp/index.php?REQUEST_URI=$1 [L]

You can duplicate the two RewriteRule rows multiple time to support multiple web applications, just remeber to replace che /cakephp string with the right Virtual Folder path.

P.S.
If you have a copy of iismod.com Mod Rewrite and Mod Auth sources, please send it to me. I have downloaded them a while ago but I can't find them anymore.