Question PHP 5.3

[manni]

Hello everyone,

From what I can see Plesk now supports PHP 5.6 for AlmaLinux 8 and 9 (https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/...P-versions-on-Plesk-servers-with-AlmaLinux-OS). I think this is great, especially as developers highlighted for several time that this is not possible due to libraries.

Nevertheless, 25-30% of our customers still use PHP 5.3. I understand if people tell me this is sh** because old and insecure, but it is still reality.

So my question is: is Plesk working on a 5.3 release as well? This would give us the chance to immediately migrate to Alma.

Thanks
Manni

 

[Maarten]

I've migrated a couple of older web apps to PHP 7.1 using the php7-mysql-shim library.

It's relatively easy to do as explained here:

Resolved - How to install CentOS 8 Plesk 5 php version ?

Hi, I installed Plesk panel on Centos 8, but php 5x versions have been removed. How do I install it ?

talk.plesk.com

 

[Kaspar@Plesk]

@manni can you share a bit more on your use case for older PHP versions? What kind of applications/websites do have running that use older PHP versions? And what (do you think) prohibits users/customers from upgrading them?

We're actually floating the idea internally for continued support of older PHP versions. But the difficulty with supporting older PHP versions is that they contain vulnerabilities and aren't always compatible with modern extensions and packages.

 

[manni]

@manni can you share a bit more on your use case for older PHP versions? What kind of applications/websites do have running that use older PHP versions? And what (do you think) prohibits users/customers from upgrading them?

We're actually floating the idea internally for continued support of older PHP versions. But the difficulty with supporting older PHP versions is that they contain vulnerabilities and aren't always compatible with modern extensions and packages.

So we have still many customers with old sites, that for sure will need upgrades. Same for our own internal services, but some of them are really extreme old and need old MySQL connection methods (mysql_connect, no mysqli - well okay I heard today in the forum that there is a fix) but especially register globals, which is only available on 5.3 and older.

Yes we are pushing to get services upgraded but I have to add here that especially in Austria many hosters offer legacy PHP, also for their new clients. This will mean that we have now three options:
1. We keep the old CentOS up and running and pay for the extended service
2. We start to host this sites on non-Plesk servers (self managed or alternative product)
3. We loose the client

Again, no question that things need to get pushed but there are sites where it is simply not that easy. Our internal platform, just as an example, has multiple 100GB in use, and it is not eben showing one screen on PHP 5.6 enabled.

 

[Kaspar@Plesk]

Thank you for sharing your use case. Much apricated. Do you charge your customers extra for using legacy PHP versions like 5.3?

There is no timeline (ETA) yet on when (or even if) we will support legacy PHP versions. If we do, those will probably be patched versions to eliminate vulnerabilities. You could also consider adding PHP 5.3 as a custom version to Plesk yourself. Information on how use custom PHP versions in Plesk can be found here: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/...o-add-a-custom-PHP-version-in-Plesk-for-Linux

I would recommend trying this on a test server first to get your self familiar with the process before applying this to your production server(s).

 

[manni]

I personally think if Plesk will not start to support PHP 5.3 soon it anyway makes no more sense. Because by forcing people to upgrade to newer OS, you require them to get rid of PHP 5.3 customers.

To answer your question: Many hosters do start taking money, we won't - because it is the reason why we are maybe good alternatives to big providers.

We in our case currently start to look into other hosting platform alternatives. of course we also understand that this is not the most important topic for Plesk.

 

[Ohya]

But, support php 5.3 isnt easy, you can try compile it in almalinux and mantain it, may you get some library problems

Tue main issue not is plesk, or cpanel or any other panel, the issue is the OS and libraries.

The easy way for that clients is mantain centos 7, they not need new features, they not need more security, they not need upgrades, they run PHP 5.3, why you would want to keep outdated and vulnerable sites on a new server, it is better to have these clients isolated in old system and not put more risk there.

 

[ChristophRo]

Doesn't Cloudlinux still provide PHP 5.3 out of the box?

We are using self compiled and built PHP 5.3 packages for our Debian 12 servers, but it was quite a struggle get it working, because of library incompatibilities with almost anything a modern Linux OS comes with nowadays...
You also need to find or write (backport) patches that fix the most serious security flaws in PHP (5.3)

 

[manni]

hello. Totally agree, but then I have to ask the question why not using CentOS 7 with self built GUi again. We only use capabilities to configure Apache and Mail, not more.

Cloudlinux with PHP5.3 also requires ELS from Plesk