pie install php-memcached/php-memcached fails multiple levels

[utdrmac]

This was quite the journey this morning. I'm upgrading to php 8.5.10, and with that, upgraded pecl. I then learned that pecl is deprecated and I should switch to pie. No bigge. I need to reinstall memcached for php 8.5.

# pie install php-memcached/php-memcached
🥧 PHP Installer for Extensions (PIE) 1.5.0.0, from The PHP Foundation
You are running PHP 8.5.10
Target PHP installation: 8.5.10 nts, on Linux/OSX/etc x86_64 (from /usr/bin/php)
Found package: php-memcached/php-memcached:v3.4.0 which provides ext-memcached
Extracted php-memcached/php-memcached:v3.4.0 source to: /root/.pie/php8.5_6f1d7e0df9d4233e19ce261c3823982e/vendor/php-memcached/php-memcached
phpize complete.

In Process.php line 269:
...
  configure: error: memcached support requires libmemcached. Use --with-libmemcached-dir=<DIR> to specify the prefix where libmemcached headers and library are located

Ok. Got it. Let's redo that (via https://github.com/awesomized/libmemcached). Followed the build from source steps. No issues. Installed into /usr/local (default)

# find /usr/local/ -name memcached.h
/usr/local/include/libmemcached-1.0/struct/memcached.h
/usr/local/include/libmemcached-1.0/memcached.h
/usr/local/include/libmemcached/memcached.h

Great! Try again.

# pie install --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local/include/ php-memcached/php-memcached
...
  configure: error: Unable to find memcached.h under /usr/local/include/

Interesting error, since I can literally find it above. Try again with more specific path:

# pie install --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local/include/libmemcached php-memcached/php-memcached
...
  configure: error: Unable to find memcached.h under /usr/local/include/libmemcached

What is wrong? The file is literally right there. Let's try this without new pie.

# git clone https://github.com/php-memcached-dev/php-memcached
# cd php-memcached
# ./configure
...
checking for libmemcached location... configure: error: memcached support requires libmemcached. Use --with-libmemcached-dir=<DIR> to specify the prefix where libmemcached headers and library are located

Tried same paths again, as with pie. Same errors. Let's look at configure script:

line 4722:

    if test ! -f "$PHP_LIBMEMCACHED_DIR/include/libmemcached/memcached.h"; then
      as_fn_error $? "Unable to find memcached.h under $PHP_LIBMEMCACHED_DIR" "$LINENO" 5
    fi

Ok. So I need to pass one level up. That's a poorly named flag.

# ./configure --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local
...
checking for libmemcached location... configure: error: memcached support requires libmemcached. Use --with-libmemcached-dir=<DIR> to specify the prefix where libmemcached headers and library are located

Sheesh. Now what? At least it found the memcached.h file. Back to configure.

if ! $PKG_CONFIG --exists libmemcached; then

Seems this is failing. Why? What's the value of $PKG_CONFIG. Added echo line to configure, and re-ran:

checking for libmemcached location... ++++ /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig ++++

Why is it looking in lib/ when this is a lib64 OS?

4.18.0-372.13.1.el8_6.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon Jun 6 15:05:22 EDT 2022 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.10 (Ootpa)

Back in configure:

# Check whether --with-libdir was given.
if test "${with_libdir+set}" = set; then :
  withval=$with_libdir; PHP_LIBDIR=$withval
else
  PHP_LIBDIR=lib
fi

So, the php-memcached configure defaults to lib without checking the OS. Fantastic (/frustrated sarcasm)

# ./configure --with-libdir=lib64 --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local
... (clean)

Holy Hera! Finally. Let's try pie again:

# pie install --with-libdir=lib64 --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local php-memcached/php-memcached
...
  The "--with-libdir" option does not exist.

Sheesh. Now what? Grasping at straws here...

# php-config --lib-dir
/usr/lib64
# php-config --version
8.5.10

Looks good.

# pie install --with-php-config=/bin/php-config --with-libmemcached-dir=/usr/local php-memcached/php-memcached
  configure: error: memcached support requires libmemcached. Use --with-libmemcached-dir=<DIR> to specify the prefix where libmemcached headers and library are located

Nope. Forget pie, back to manual install:

# cd php-memcached
# make && make install
Installing shared extensions:     /usr/lib64/php/modules/

Finally.

# php -i | grep memcached
/etc/php.d/41-memcached.ini
memcached
memcached support => enabled
libmemcached-awesome version => 1.1.4

Please fix support for pie and memcached so that others don't need to struggle as I did for 3 hours this morning.

[kynx]

Ouch 🤕 It sounds like they need to add the --with-libdir option to https://github.com/php-memcached-dev/php-memcached/blob/master/composer.json - and preferably make lib64 the default. Definitely you should raise a ticket over there with this.

[asgrim]

I'm still digging into this right now, but I'm actually currently thinking --with-libdir may make more sense to bake into PIE itself, since it's shared across (I think) all extensions. I'm still researching though, please bare with me :)

[asgrim]

@utdrmac Thanks for this, this is great and detailed feedback - would you be able to get me your php-config --configure-options value please? I think I have a solution that should work, I've been able to reproduce the issue in Rocky 8 (since I can't try RHEL directly), but seeing the configure options your PHP was built with will confirm if my idea will fix your issue 100%.

[utdrmac]

(formatted output)

$ php-config --configure-options
--build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu
--host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --program-prefix=
--disable-dependency-tracking --prefix=/usr
--exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin
--sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share
--includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib64
--libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var
--sharedstatedir=/var/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-rtld-now
--cache-file=../config.cache --with-libdir=lib64
--with-config-file-path=/etc
--with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php.d --disable-debug
--with-pic --disable-rpath --without-pear
--with-exec-dir=/usr/bin --without-gdbm
--enable-opcache-file --with-openssl --with-system-ciphers
--with-external-pcre --with-external-libcrypt --with-zlib
--with-layout=GNU --with-libxml --with-system-tzdata
--with-mhash --without-password-argon2 --enable-dtrace
--enable-sockets --enable-fpm --with-fpm-systemd
--with-fpm-selinux --with-fpm-acl --enable-embed
--disable-gd --disable-dom --disable-dba --without-unixODBC
--without-mysqli --disable-pdo --disable-phpdbg
--without-ffi --disable-xmlreader --disable-xmlwriter
--without-sodium --without-sqlite3 --disable-phar
--disable-fileinfo --without-curl --disable-posix
--disable-xml --disable-simplexml --disable-exif
--without-gettext --without-iconv --disable-ftp
--without-bz2 --disable-ctype --disable-shmop
--disable-tokenizer --disable-sysvmsg --disable-sysvshm
--disable-sysvsem build_alias=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu
host_alias=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig
LDFLAGS=-Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now
-specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-ld
EXTENSION_DIR=/usr/lib64/php/modules PHP_UNAME=Linux
PHP_BUILD_SYSTEM=Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.10
(Ootpa) PHP_BUILD_PROVIDER=Remi

PHP is installed on this system via the REMI repo.

[remicollet]

PHP is installed on this system via the REMI repo.

So, simply use dnf install php-memcached ;)

[utdrmac]

$ sudo dnf search php-memcached
Last metadata expiration check: 0:56:25 ago on Tue 22 Sep 2026 01:55:36 PM UTC.
No matches found.

[remicollet]

$ sudo dnf search php-memcached
Last metadata expiration check: 0:56:25 ago on Tue 22 Sep 2026 01:55:36 PM UTC.
No matches found.

# dnf repoquery --whatprovides=php-memcached
php-pecl-memcached-0:3.4.0-1.module_php.8.4.fc43.remi.x86_64

So dnf install php-memcached works (package name is not reliable, but php-<extname> is)

[asgrim]

Fixed in #741 - the libdir handling improvement will be released in 1.6.0 - thank you! Remi's solution still fits best for your specific use case though, but fixing the libdir handling was still worth uncovering.