Introduction

The Google App Engine is a very good PaaS solution. Setting up a development environment is not trivial task. Make sure to read the official documentation for proper understanding.

Today we’ll deal with the PHP Standard environment.

Installation

Read the Official instructions first.

Install the Google Cloud SDK from the AUR
Install php55 from the AUR
Install php55-appengine from the AUR (https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/appengine-php-extension)
(Optional) Install php55-xdebug from the AUR

Setup

PHP

Enable the bcmath extension that is required.
Edit /etc/php55/php.ini and add to the extensions list:

extension=bcmath.so

To allow php tooling from the Google Cloud SDK to run, append its paths to the open_basedir directive in /etc/php55/php.ini:

:/opt/google-cloud-sdk/platform/google_appengine/google/appengine/tools/devappserver2/php:/opt/google-cloud-sdk/platform/google_appengine/google/appengine/sdk/php

To disable html_errors for better CLI debugging, create /etc/php55/conf.d/disable_html_errors.ini:

html_errors = Off

Run

From the CLI

Run dev_appserver.py with the following options:

/opt/google-cloud-sdk/platform/google_appengine/dev_appserver.py --php_executable_path /usr/bin/php55-cgi --php_gae_extension_path /usr/lib/php55/modules/gae_runtime_module.so --php_xdebug_extension_path=/usr/lib/php55/modules/xdebug.so --log_level debug .

I like to run my development server in debug mode all the time but you can remove --log_level debug if you don’t need it.

If you have any error, you can append the --dev_appserver_log_level debug for a more verbose output.

In PhpStorm

Start a new Google App Engine project.
In the Settings, set the PHP level to “PHP 5.5”.
Add a PHP 5.5 interpreter to /usr/bin/php55 and add the xdebug path.
Edit the run “Run/Debug Configuration” and add the following to the Interpreter options:

--php_executable_path /usr/bin/php55-cgi --php_gae_extension_path /usr/lib/php55/modules/gae_runtime_module.so --php_xdebug_extension_path /usr/lib/php55/modules/xdebug.so --log_level debug