How to Install and Use NSQ with PHP-NSQ: A Step-by-Step Guide

NSQ Overview

NSQ is a distributed, real‑time messaging platform designed for high‑throughput, fault‑tolerant, and highly available message delivery in decentralized services. It can handle hundreds of millions of messages per day and supports many protocols.

PHP‑NSQ Client

PHP‑NSQ is a PHP 7/8 extension that enables PHP applications to interact with NSQ, providing publish and subscribe capabilities similar to Kafka.

Installing NSQ with Docker

$ docker pull nsqio/nsq
Using default tag: latest
latest: Pulling from nsqio/nsq
709515475419: Pull complete
efd1c5a69d15: Pull complete
fa61d00bb52d: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:fad1937a88fec5b66fb9f4837b72ad3b70012692826aed5c6435f93c5a23b690
Status: Downloaded newer image for nsqio/nsq:latest

After the container starts, you can view the NSQ admin UI (image omitted) and publish a test message:

curl -d 'Hello Linux localhost Msg' 'http://127.0.0.1:4151/pub?topic=test'

The message can be inspected via the NSQ dashboard (image omitted).

Installing PHP‑NSQ Extension

Install libevent

The extension depends on the libevent library. Install it with your system’s package manager:

# Debian/Ubuntu
apt-get install libevent-dev
# CentOS/RHEL
yum install libevent-devel
# macOS
brew install libevent

Install the NSQ PECL package

pecl install nsq

PHP Usage Example

<?php
namespace app\index\controller;

class NsqController extends Controller
{
    public function index()
    {
        ini_set('memory_limit', '8M');
        $nsqdAddr = ["127.0.0.1:4151", "127.0.0.1:4150"];
        $nsq = new \Nsq();
        $isTrue = $nsq->connectNsqd($nsqdAddr);
        for ($i = 0; $i < 6; $i++) {
            $nsq->publish("test", "Hi Tinywan");
        }
        $nsq->closeNsqdConnection();
        halt($isTrue);
        // Deferred publish example
        $deferred = new \Nsq();
        $isTrue = $deferred->connectNsqd($nsqdAddr);
        for ($i = 0; $i < 20; $i++) {
            $deferred->deferredPublish("test", "message daly", 3000);
        }
        $deferred->closeNsqdConnection();
    }

    public function nsqSubMessage()
    {
        $nsq_lookupd = new \NsqLookupd("127.0.0.1:4161");
        $nsq = new \Nsq();
        $config = array(
            "topic" => "test",
            "channel" => "struggle",
            "rdy" => 2,               // optional, default 1
            "connect_num" => 1,        // optional, default 1
            "retry_delay_time" => 5000,// optional, default 0
            "auto_finish" => true,     // default true
        );
        $nsq->subscribe($nsq_lookupd, $config, function($msg, $bev) {
            echo $msg->payload . "
";
            echo $msg->attempts . "
";
            echo $msg->messageId . "
";
            echo $msg->timestamp . "
";
        });
    }
}

Running the controller from the command line (e.g., php think pay nsq) prints connection status and received messages, as shown in the console output (image omitted).