The Wonderful World of Linux A mostly dead cpanel/linux blog

How To Build Multiple Versions of PHP with cPanel

March 21, 2014

For the longest time I have wanted to be able to support multiple versions of PHP within apache and cPanel but I wasn’t able to find any sort of guide on this. After searching for a while, I did come across ntphp and these guys did a really, really great job! If you are looking for a quick and simple way to get multiple versions of PHP that also comes with a cPanel plugin, check these guys out! However, I like to do things myself and come up with my own way of doing things. So here is my guide to installing multiple versions of PHP in cPanel!

A couple Things to Note

  • This will only work with suPHP (Not DSO or mod_ruid2)
  • This does not sync up with EasyApache or rebuild with EasyApache
  • You probably shouldn’t build the same version as the default. If your default PHP version is 5.4, then don’t build php5.4 via this method. I don’t think anything will happen but I would personally avoid it.

Installing PHP 5.2

Php 5.2 is slightly different because it requires a patch in order to build correctly. If you don’t care about 5.2, skip down to 5.3, 5.4, and 5.5. Recently, multiple versions of PHP were labeled with a vulnerability and its recommended you avoid those versions. All versions of PHP 5.2 were listed because 5.2 is officially end of life and has not and will not be updated. Basically, you should NOT be using this version of PHP. With that being said, I have had some clients that did require this and had not had a chance to upgrade their site code. This method below is perfect for this scenario! You can have PHP 5.5 as the default and install PHP 5.2 for that 1 client that refuses to upgrade their 4 year old code. Lets take a look at the process!

Download and Extract It

Lets start by downloading it! We have to go to the PHP museum for this:

su -
cd /usr/local/src/
wget -O php-5.2.17.tar.gz http://museum.php.net/php5/php-5.2.17.tar.gz
tar -xvzf php-5.2.17.tar.gz
cd php-5.2.17

Build It

The easiest way to configure this is to copy the config options from the current working PHP (the one you built in EasyApache):

$(php -i | grep configure | sed s/\'//g | cut -d" " -f4- | sed "s:--prefix=/usr/local:--prefix=/usr/local/php52:")

Quick note. The $() surrounding the command basically takes the output and runs it as a command within the shell. If you are running litespeed (but using apache), copy the command above (without the $()) and remove --with-litespeed. If you don’t do this it will not build php-cgi which is required for suPHP. If you get errors about sqlite not being shared, you can simply remove it (If you don’t need it of course) by appending the following to the command --without-pdo-sqlite --without-sqlite

Next we need to add the patch for php 5.2 for it to build correctly:

wget https://mail.gnome.org/archives/xml/2012-August/txtbgxGXAvz4N.txt
patch -p0 -b < txtbgxGXAvz4N.txt

Then make it

make && make install

If you look in /usr/local/php52/bin you should see a binary file called ‘php-cgi’. If you do not then you will need to go back and run this from the “build it” section. Append --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs to the end of the configure line. Apxs is located in /usr/local/apache/bin/ by default in cpanel but it never hurts to verify. Then you can go back and run make && make install. You should now see the php-cgi binary.

Add It To Apache

Generate the PHP config:

cat > /usr/local/apache/conf/php52.conf << EOF
AddType application/x-httpd-php52 .php52 .php
<Directory />
   suPHP_AddHandler application/x-httpd-php52
</Directory>
EOF

And add the include to apache:

echo "Include /usr/local/apache/conf/php52.conf" >> /usr/local/apache/conf/includes/pre_main_global.conf

Then Add the Handler to suPHP’s config:

sed -i '/\;Handler for php-scripts/a application\/x-httpd-php52=\"php\:\/usr\/local\/php52\/bin\/php-cgi\"' /opt/suphp/etc/suphp.conf

Copy a default php.ini into 5.2

cp /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/php.ini /usr/local/php52/lib/

And restart Apache!

service httpd restart

Configure Domain To Use This PHP

Add the following /home/username/public_html/.htaccess

AddType application/x-httpd-php52 php

And you are done! All of your php binaries and libraries are located at /usr/local/php52/. The php binary is /usr/local/php52/bin/php and pecl/pear is located at /usr/local/php52/bin/pecl. Your php.ini will be reachable from here /usr/local/php52/lib/php.ini. Enjoy!

Installing PHP 5.3, 5.4, 5.5

These do not require a patch and the setup is exactly the same. However, please READ EACH COMMAND CAREFULLY. Im going to write this guide for PHP 5.5 but if you want to use this for php 5.3 or 5.4, please make sure you read every command and replace all applicable strings with your version. You’ll want to replace all instances of 5.5.10 and all instances of php55 with your respective version. Lets get going!

Download and Extract It

Lets start by downloading it:

su -
cd /usr/local/src/
wget -O php-5.5.10.tar.gz http://us1.php.net/get/php-5.5.10.tar.gz/from/this/mirror
tar -xvzf php-5.5.10.tar.gz
cd php-5.5.10

Build It

The easiest way to configure this is to copy the config options from the current working PHP (the one you built in EasyApache):

$(php -i | grep configure | sed s/\'//g | cut -d" " -f4- | sed "s:--prefix=/usr/local:--prefix=/usr/local/php55:")

Quick note. The $() surrounding the command basically takes the output and runs it as its own command within the shell. If you are running litespeed (but using apache), copy the command above and remove --with-litespeed. If you don’t do this it will not build php-cgi which is required for suPHP. If you get errors about sqlite not being shared, you can simply remove it (If you don’t need it of course) by appending the following to the command --without-pdo-sqlite --without-sqlite

Then we make it and install:

make && make install

If you look in /usr/local/php55/bin you should see a binary file called ‘php-cgi’. If you do not then you will need to go back and run this from the “build it” section. Append --with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs to the end of the configure line. Apxs is located in /usr/local/apache/bin/ by default in cpanel but it never hurts to verify first. Then you can go back and run make && make install. You can should now see the php-cgi binary.

Add It To Apache

Generate the PHP config:

cat > /usr/local/apache/conf/php55.conf << EOF
AddType application/x-httpd-php55 .php55 .php
<Directory />
   suPHP_AddHandler application/x-httpd-php55
</Directory>
EOF

And add the include to Apache:

echo "Include /usr/local/apache/conf/php55.conf" >> /usr/local/apache/conf/includes/pre_main_global.conf

Add the Handler to suPHP:

sed -i '/\;Handler for php-scripts/a application\/x-httpd-php55=\"php\:\/usr\/local\/php55\/bin\/php-cgi\"' /opt/suphp/etc/suphp.conf

Copy a default php.ini:

cp /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/php.ini /usr/local/php55/lib/

And restart Apache!

service httpd restart

Configure Domain To Use This PHP

Add the following /home/username/public_html/.htaccess

AddType application/x-httpd-php55 php

And you are done! All of your php binaries and libraries are located at /usr/local/php55/. The php binary is /usr/local/php55/bin/php and pecl/pear is located at /usr/local/php55/bin/pecl. Your php.ini will be reachable from here /usr/local/php55/lib/php.ini. Enjoy!

Wrap Up

So that wasn’t too hard! You should now have a fully functional php install for your clients! Another quick note, this doesn’t work with litespeed. I’ll be writing up a litespeed specific version in a little while. I also plan on creating a WHM plugin for this to quickly generate new php versions (And even get fancy like having several instances in the same branch). If that ever happens I’ll post about it here. If you have any questions, hit me up in the comments or on twitter. I can’t guarantee I’ll have the answers but I’ll give it my best!