EasyApache and PHP patch level

[aztopdavid]

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I manage a VPS installed on CENTOS 7.6 with WHM v82.0.13 and EasyApache 4. My Apache is at 2.4.41 and my PHP is at 7.2.7. I read an article about PHP vulnerabilities today that mentioned 7.2.22 as a patch that addressed the vulnerabilities. In the downloads at PHP.net, I see "Old Stable PHP 7.2.22" and yet I hesitate to grab that and do a manual update, as I don't want to break things. Is that the only way to stay current, or is there a procedure/configuration option in WHM/EasyApache that would keep my server's PHP version at a more current patch level?

 

[cPanelLauren]

Hi @aztopdavid

The current version of ea-php72 available from the EA4 repository is:

ea-php72.x86_64                                                                              7.2.22-1.1.1.cpanel                                                                              EA4

These updates should be getting completed automatically unless you've chosen to have them be manual.

You can see what you have selected for this by going to WHM>>Server Configuration>>Update Preferences -> Operating System Package Updates

If you want updates for this to be done regularly you can select Automatic

 

[aztopdavid]

My Operating System Package Updates is already on Automatic. My Reliease Tier was on CURRENT as well, but there was a pending update just now, so I switched that back to RELEASE (which it says is "Recommended"). I ran the update to v82.0.14. I don't think there's an option to view the current PHP patch level directly within WHM, so I was opening phpMyAdmin and in the "Web server" info on the right. it still says "PHP version: 7.2.7." HOWEVER, when I log into cPanel for one of the hosted accounts, and click on "Server Information," it's showing my PHP Version as 7.2.21. Shouldn't those be in agreement? And even if I'm actually at 7.2.21, the "Old Stable PHP" version, release on 29 Aug 2019, should be 7.2.22.

So, the remaining questions are, why does my phpMyAdmin display 7.2.7 and why is my system not at 7.2.22?

 

[aztopdavid]

Update: an answer to my first question appears to be here:

PHP version incorrect via phpmyadmin
https://forums.cpanel.net/threads/php-version-incorrect-via-phpmyadmin.596947/

 

[aztopdavid]

A little more searching brought me to this:

PHP version information incorrect
https://forums.cpanel.net/threads/php-version-information-incorrect.579471/

Running these commands:

rm /etc/apache2/conf.d/php.version
/scripts/findphpversion

Resulted in changing the value of php.version to 7.2.22, so I think I just answered my second question as well. One would think that this value would have already been correct without my intervention, so I guess that question still remains.

 

[cPanelLauren]

The first thread you linked is correct, PHPMyAdmin uses cPanel's internal PHP which is in no way associated with the PHP version your sites are using. While I'm glad that you were able to rectify this by using that thread, that workaround is associated with an old case and shouldn't be an issue any longer. I'm also not able to replicate the issue with the correct PHP version not being displayed on a test server (my test server is on EDGE which runs a newer version of PHP):

From my PHPMyAdmin:

Web server

• cpsrvd 11.83.9999.151
• Database client version: libmysql - 5.6.43
• PHP extension: mysqli curl mbstring
• PHP version: 7.3.6

The version of internal PHP cPanel is using:

cpanel-php73-7.3.6-2.cp1184.x86_64

Though that file does still reflect the incorrect version:

[root@server ~]# cat /etc/apache2/conf.d/php.version
7.2.21

and running that script doesn't resolve that issue:

[root@server ~]# /scripts/findphpversion
PHP version file has been updated to 7.2.22
Building global cache for cpanel...Done

On a v82 test server I can observe the same behavior:

The version of system PHP present:

cpanel-php72-7.2.7-8.cp1182.x86_64

The version PHPMyAdmin shows:

Web server

• cpsrvd 11.81.9005.685
• Database client version: libmysql - 5.6.43
• PHP extension: mysqli curl mbstring
• PHP version: 7.2.7

The version shown in the php.version file:

[root@82 ~]# cat /etc/apache2/conf.d/php.version
7.2.18

The output from the script:

[root@82 ~]# /scripts/findphpversion
PHP version file has been updated to 7.2.18
Building global cache for cpanel...Done

Which indicates to me that there's some caching in place and this file is not being used to report the PHP version

So, the remaining questions are, why does my phpMyAdmin display 7.2.7 and why is my system not at 7.2.22?

With the information provided it sounds like you should be automatically updating. Does the following complete without issue?

yum update

 

[aztopdavid]

Yes, the yum command completes without issue. I think I didn't report part of my process, however. While troubleshooting, I think I ran a "yum update" command which resulted in updates to some packages, including PHP, if I recall correctly. Sorry to have left that part out. The next time that there's a PHP version update, I'll check to see if the version on my server updates automatically, and report back here.