can't add .php mapping for php on iis6 in multi server environment

Question

I have a multi-server environment ( all windows 2003 ).

I manually installed php 5 on the appserver.
I also plan to install mySQL on the appserver.

on the webserver, which is DMZ'd, I added the php5isapi.dll extension under iis6 > web service extensions.

I was able to do that by giving the unc path to the isapi dll on the appserver
\\local ip address of appserver\c$\php\php5isapi.dll

when attempting to add the ".php" extension mapping on
webserver >> iis6 >> default website > properties > home directory > configuration > add mappings
Windows says that I can't use a UNC path
\\local ip address of appserver\c$\php\php5isapi.dll to access the .dll file which is on a different server.

so I'm confused. I thought that the I was going about this the right way - by setting up my appserver (backend) to do all the php processing and telling the webserver where to send the php jobs.

what am I missing or what should I be doing differently?

Answer 1

even if that worked, that wouldn't make the php run on the appserver - it would load the dll from the appserver into memory on the webserver and run the code there. you need to set up the file association only on the machine you want to execute the php on