How to Install and Use the glibc‑Based swoole‑cli on Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora

The previous static build of swoole-cli linked all libraries statically, which avoided runtime dependencies but could not load dynamic PHP extensions (e.g., opcache, phpy) and used musl libc, resulting in slower memory allocation than glibc.

glibc‑linked release

Version v6.1.3 provides a glibc‑linked distribution. The official download page contains two packages: swoole-cli-v6.1.3-linux-x64-glibc.deb – for Debian/Ubuntu. swoole-cli-v6.1.3-linux-x64-glibc.rpm – for RHEL/Fedora/CentOS.

Ubuntu/Debian installation

Requires Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12.

Inside a Docker container (or on a bare system) install the .deb without updating package lists:

sudo docker run -it -v /home/swoole/workspace/projects/swoole-cli/:/work ubuntu:22.04
apt install ./swoole-cli-v6.1.3-linux-x64-glibc.deb

The binary is placed at /usr/local/bin/swoole-cli and its bundled shared libraries are stored under /usr/local/swoole-cli/lib/. The library directory contains a full set of .so files (e.g., libssl.so, libcurl.so, libstdc++.so) that are used instead of the host system’s versions, making the binary behave similarly to a self‑contained Docker image.

RHEL/Fedora installation

For Fedora 36 or newer, install the .rpm package:

sudo docker run -it -v /home/swoole/workspace/projects/swoole-cli/:/work fedora:36
yum install ./swoole-cli-v6.1.3-linux-x64-glibc.rpm

Running PHP‑FPM

swoole-cli -P -h
# Shows usage options such as -c <code><path></code>, -n, -d foo[=bar], -i, -m, -v, etc.

Starting the built‑in HTTP server

swoole-cli -S 127.0.0.1:9903
# Starts a PHP development server at http://127.0.0.1:9903

Using Composer inside the container

swoole-cli composer
# Displays Composer help and available commands.

Viewing loaded extensions

The extension list of the glibc build matches that of the static build:

swoole-cli -m
# Outputs a long list of PHP modules, including bcmath, curl, gd, imagick, opcache, openssl, redis, swoole, etc.

Dynamic extension loading

swoole-cli

does not bundle phpize, so a separate PHP 8.4 ZTS NO‑DEBUG development environment with gcc, make, autoconf, etc., is required to compile extensions. After building, copy the resulting .so files to the PHP extensions directory: /usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-zts-20240924 Load an extension at runtime, for example:

swoole-cli -d extension=phpy -v

Version check

swoole-cli -v
# Swoole 6.1.3 (cli) (built: Nov 26 2025 ...) (ZTS)