[CentOS] PHP 7.x on CentOS 7 : which solution ?

Fri Mar 15 08:29:10 UTC 2019
Rob Kampen <rkampen at kampensonline.com>

On 15/03/19 8:51 PM, Nicolas Kovacs wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As you all know, CentOS 7 is shipping PHP 5.4, which is OK in some
> situations. Unfortunately, some applications like OwnCloud require a
> more recent version of PHP.
>
> Up until recently, I've been using PHP 5.6 packages from the Webtatic
> repository. Despite the bad press this third party repo seems to have,
> it has been working perfectly for me for a few years. Here's the PHP 5.6
> packages I have on an OwnCloud server:
>
> $ rpm -qa | grep php
> php56w-devel-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-pdo-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-gd-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-mysql-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-process-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-pear-1.10.4-1.w7.noarch
> php56w-common-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-xml-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-pecl-redis-3.1.6-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-cli-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-mcrypt-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-mbstring-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-pecl-igbinary-2.0.5-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-pecl-apcu-4.0.11-2.w7.x86_64
> php56w-intl-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
> php56w-soap-5.6.40-1.w7.x86_64
>
> Now I'll have to upgrade these to some version of PHP 7. So I googled
> "php 7 centos 7" and found quite a wealth of - sometimes contradictory -
> information.
>
> 1. The "recommended" way of doing things seems to be the Red Hat
> Software Collections. Correct me if I'm wrong. I wonder if this way of
> doing things will enable me to get all the PHP modules listed above.
>
> 2. The use of Webtatic seems to be frowned upon. I still have to figure
> out why, since this repository has always worked perfectly for me.
>
> 3. Then there's another repository managed by Remi Collet. Any thoughts
> on that?
>
> And then there's also the question : which version of PHP 7 should I
> choose ? On my servers, I'm mainly hosting WordPress, Dolibarr and
> OwnCloud.
>
> Any suggestions ? I'm no lamer for doing a bit of RTFM, so a pointer to
> documentation will do. The problem is not so much that there is no
> information on the subject. It's rather : there's too much. As we say in
> France : I'm confused about which saint to send my prayers to. :o)

Hi Niki,

I have been using the Remi Collet versions 7.0, 7.1 and 7.2 on a few 
servers that need later php versions. They seem to work as advertised, 
they have many supporting php libraries - not sure if they include all 
the ones you specify.

Currently using their 7.2.15 with no issues on CentOS 7.6 with selinux 
enabled and enforcing.

I use codeigniter v 3.1.10 and bonfire v 0.84 (my own updated version to 
use the latest codeigniter) plus a few other related systems: bootstrap 
4.2.1, jquery 3.3.1 for my web development with this php version.

php 7.3 is bleeding edge in my view - only released 12/2018 so I'll wait 
a bit before going there as production needs some stability.

HTH
Rob

> Cheers,
>
> Niki