Getting and installing the PEAR package manager

Windows

After you have downloaded and installed PHP, you have to manually execute the batch file located in e.g. c:\php\go-pear.bat. Alternatively, download http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar with your browser and save the output to a local file named go-pear.phar. You can then run

      
php go-pear.phar
      
     

in a Windows Command Prompt to start the installation.

The setup will ask you some questions and afterwards the PEAR Package Manager will be installed in the path, which you have specified during installation.

Finally you have to add that installation path to your PATH environment. Either do this manually (Start > Control Panel > System > Environment) or run (double-click) the newly generated PEAR_ENV.reg that's now found in the PHP source directory.

After that you can access the PEAR Package Manager by running the command pear in a Windows Command Prompt.

After changing php.ini, you will need to restart your web server.

Now check that PEAR works.

Unix/Linux/BSD

When using PHP, the PEAR Package Manager is already installed unless one has used the ./configure option --without-pear.

If one uses a version of PHP that is supplied by Unix/Linux/BSD distributors it may be necessary to manually install PEAR. Users should consult the documentation for the respective distribution in this case.

If you want to re-install the Package Manager, you can use the following provisional way:

      
$ wget http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar
$ php go-pear.phar
      
     

Please note, you may need to install the wget package via your Unix/Linux/BSD package manager. On Debian and Ubuntu this is done via:

      
      $ sudo apt-get install wget
      
     

Alternatively, download the go-pear.phar file via your browser.

If the process just exits without any output, your syslog will probably contain the following lines:

suhosin[4705]: ALERT - Include filename ('phar://go-pear.phar/index.php')
 is an URL that is not allowed
 (attacker 'REMOTE_ADDR not set', file '/root/go-pear.phar', line 1236)
     

To work around this problem, enable the phar in /etc/php5/conf.d/suhosin.ini:

suhosin.executor.include.whitelist = phar
     

Now check that PEAR works.

Mac OS X

On Mac OS 10.4 and earlier, the PEAR Package Manager is already installed in /usr/bin/pear.

If you are using Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), would like to install a new copy, or re-install the PEAR Package Manager use the following command:

      
$ wget http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar
$ php -d detect_unicode=0 go-pear.phar
      
     

Please note, you may need to install the wget package prior to running these commands. Alternatively, use curl as shown below or download the go-pear.phar file via your browser.

      
$ curl -O http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar
$ php -d detect_unicode=0 go-pear.phar
      
     

For a system-wide installation, you will need to execute the go-pear script with increased permissions. This is only recommended for advanced users.

       
$ wget http://pear.php.net/go-pear.phar
$ sudo php -d detect_unicode=0 go-pear.phar
       
      

Now check that PEAR works.

PEAR in hosting environments

If you are running your site at a web hosting provider with no direct access to the server (via local logins, Telnet or SSH), you can use the PEAR Installer using the Web Frontend or (S)FTP.

Go to go-pear and save as go-pear.php. Copy go-pear.php to your server and open the corresponding URL in your browser, for example http://example.com/pear/go-pear.php.

Do not forget to protect the pear directory if you did not do already before the installation: Make it unreadable and not executable from external (i.e. put it outside public_html).

Now check that PEAR works.