Enable PHP Version Switching

[gwen_the_hen]

Hello,

Is there a simple method for allowing cPanel accounts to switch between various PHP versions? I'm sure in the past I have seen this when using cPanel as a client, but I can't seem to find any option for this aside from using CloudLinux (which I don't want to do currently).

On a related note, would it be possible to install PHP7 as part of this switcher or as a standalone upgrade?

 

[Jcats]

Hello,

Yes the option is available in both WHM and cPanel called:

MultiPHP Manager

If you don't see this, you are running EasyApache3 in which you need to upgrade to EasyApache4.

How to Migrate Between EasyApache 3 and EasyApache 4 - EasyApache 4 - cPanel Documentation

Once you do, you can then install and allow switching from PHP 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 7, and 7.1

 

[gwen_the_hen]

Great! Thanks for such a swift reply. Do you recommend doing this in most cases? Are there any concerns about doing so?

 

[Jcats]

It can cause issues yes, I'd recommend giving a maintenance period for your users, the web server usually goes down during the transition and depending on how slow/fast the server is the downtime can vary but usually 2~ minutes.

I'd also recommend changing the default PHP limits as the default ones are pretty low like memory_limit and upload file size, example by default I usually do:

sed -i 's/allow_url_fopen = Off/allow_url_fopen = On/g' /opt/cpanel/ea-php*/root/etc/php.ini
sed -i 's/max_execution_time = 30/max_execution_time = 120/g' /opt/cpanel/ea-php*/root/etc/php.ini
sed -i 's/max_input_time = 60/max_input_time = -1/g' /opt/cpanel/ea-php*/root/etc/php.ini
sed -i 's/memory_limit = 32M/memory_limit = 128M/g' /opt/cpanel/ea-php*/root/etc/php.ini
sed -i 's/upload_max_filesize = 2M/upload_max_filesize = 64M/g' /opt/cpanel/ea-php*/root/etc/php.ini

/scripts/restartsrv_apache

You can run that right in SSH, but change the actual options as you see fit.

If all hell breaks loose, and you are not sure what the issue is, you can revert back to EA3 as well.

 

[gwen_the_hen]

Awesome, thanks. The cPanel documentation (How to Migrate Between EasyApache 3 and EasyApache 4 - EasyApache 4 - cPanel Documentation) doesn't seem to match up with what I can see in WHM - there's no migrate option in EA4, it just says I can't use it while EA3 is active. I found another link that recommends running the following as root:

/scripts/migrate_ea3_to_ea4 --run

Is that what you'd recommend?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Jcats]

Yes just run that, you are most likely not running the latest version of cPanel then as it was recently implemented to do the migration within WHM instead of using SSH

 

[gwen_the_hen]

OK great, I will give it a go - thanks!

 

[Jcats]

No problem!

 

[germany]

For this goal I use - MultiPHP Manager.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello @gwen_the_hen,

You may want to update cPanel to the latest version available on your build tier before converting to EasyApache 4. Let us know how it goes, or if you have any additional questions. Once EA4 is installed, users can browse to "cPanel >> MultiPHP Manager" to change the PHP Versions:

MultiPHP Manager for cPanel - Documentation - cPanel Documentation

Thank you.