I was trying to re-compile PHP today to install lighttpd. It needs the fast-cgi option when compiling because unlike Apache it doesn’t use mod_perl. I kept specifying the –enable-fastcgi option but every time I compiled it didn’t make the php-cgi binary. It just made the cli version and that was it.
The problem: apxs the tool that php uses to configure itself with Apache (i wanted PHP setup with both apache and lighttpd) seems to disable the –enable-fastcgi option. This only seemed to happen with Apache 2.2.
The solution: disable the apxs option when you compile and manualy add the config lines to apache if you need it.