diff --git a/docs/rolereference.rst b/docs/rolereference.rst
index c73499057ce321a8e5db9b3f4d7f9035da4d87c4..42f68c3185b87f066d40230f4e657143f7dc97cf 100644
--- a/docs/rolereference.rst
+++ b/docs/rolereference.rst
@@ -855,6 +855,9 @@ The role implements the following:
   index page.
 * Deploys the HTTPS TLS private key and certificate (for default vhost).
 * Configures firewall to allow incoming connections to the web server.
+* Installs and configures supervisor, virtualenv, and virtualenvwrapper as a
+  common base for Python apps.
+* Installs and configures PHP FPM as a common base for PHP apps.
 
 
 Parameters
diff --git a/roles/web_server/handlers/main.yml b/roles/web_server/handlers/main.yml
index 766f63df51e6307cdacb8696c57e38a176c11821..0dcf4940c96701fb1eab95273fefff73c6ac5047 100644
--- a/roles/web_server/handlers/main.yml
+++ b/roles/web_server/handlers/main.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
 ---
 
 - name: Restart nginx
-  service: name=nginx state=restarted
\ No newline at end of file
+  service: name=nginx state=restarted
+
+- name: Restart php5-fpm
+  service: name=php5-fpm state=restarted
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/roles/web_server/tasks/main.yml b/roles/web_server/tasks/main.yml
index 7b383a6dbe195aa55163c5225230bcc73b36f420..e58cd3d62e02cd5118442be925d1b17ee53ab870 100644
--- a/roles/web_server/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/roles/web_server/tasks/main.yml
@@ -46,4 +46,35 @@
             owner=root group=www-data mode=640
 
 - name: Enable nginx service
-  service: name=nginx enabled=yes state=started
\ No newline at end of file
+  service: name=nginx enabled=yes state=started
+
+- name: Install base packages for Python web applications
+  apt: name="{{ item }}" state=installed
+  with_items:
+    - supervisor
+    - virtualenv
+    - virtualenvwrapper
+
+- name: Install base packages for PHP web applications
+  apt: name="{{ item }}" state=installed
+  with_items:
+    - php5-fpm
+
+- name: Enable services used for running web applications
+  service: name="{{ item }}" enabled=yes state=started
+  with_items:
+    - php5-fpm
+    - supervisor
+
+- name: Read timezone on server
+  slurp: src=/etc/timezone
+  register: server_timezone
+
+- name: Configure timezone for PHP
+  template: src="php_timezone.ini.j2" dest="{{ item }}/30-timezone.ini"
+            owner=root group=root mode=644
+  with_items:
+    - /etc/php5/cli/conf.d/
+    - /etc/php5/fpm/conf.d/
+  notify:
+    - Restart php5-fpm
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/roles/web_server/templates/php_timezone.ini.j2 b/roles/web_server/templates/php_timezone.ini.j2
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..2fe8a58cca1e9d56f42d9287f568b1a57a2a62f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/roles/web_server/templates/php_timezone.ini.j2
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+date.timezone = '{{ server_timezone.content | b64decode | trim }}'
diff --git a/testsite/group_vars/all.yml b/testsite/group_vars/all.yml
index 452fbfdd3f024a72333fd880e8276c038fa714d9..d075af6de1d7dc015a1315f70e7175a21c8b6d2d 100644
--- a/testsite/group_vars/all.yml
+++ b/testsite/group_vars/all.yml
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ common_packages:
   - emacs24-nox
   - screen
   - debconf-utils
+  - colordiff
 
 ca_certificates:
   - "{{ inventory_dir }}/tls/example_ca_chain.pem"