Vote Please share your opinion about Plesk PHP packages

[IgorG]

Dear Plesk users!

We would like to ask what do you think about our PHP packages, compiled by Odin in scope of Multiple PHP versions feature? What sort of problems you notice? How they are usable for your purposes?

Please, share your opinion here and feel free to be honest.

Thank you for cooperation!

 

[sebgonzes]

Php-fpm not working for me (http://talk.plesk.com/threads/probl...eout-specified-has-expired-ah01075-er.335211/) fastcgi not giveme problem. We really love the posibiity of php choose (for a few clients, we had to active php 5.2 because they had old website)

 

[dalydesign]

Yes, same here. Great to be able to test domains on higher versions of php

 

[Thomas Poisl]

I'm somewhat satisfied, because I think it is great to not have to compile the php versions and to have a regular and easy way to address security issues and not having to live with prehistoric vendor php package.

On the other hand I think the plesk php packages still need to mature a bit.

Here are some pitfalls I found recently:
* Using owncloud 8.2.0 I need to go for php 5.6.14 FPM served by nginx. If I switch to FPM served by apache, my outlook synctool (WebDAV collaborator) stops working, telling me that the credentials are requested twice.
* On my typo3 6.2.15 installations I need to use 5.6.14 FPM served by apache, because if I use 5.6.14 FPM served by nginx I need to explicitly configure the setting "[SYS][trustedHostsPattern] = (www\.)?domain\.tld" because with the default configuration setting "SERVER_NAME", "domain.tld" will be displayed correctly but "www.domain.tld" shows a security warning. Interestingly the SERVER_NAME is not differing when switching between nginx and apache served php version.
* With plesk php 5.6.14 FPM served by apache, "niceText" in typo3 6.2.15 is not working (text is missing). I guess this could be related to a typo3 ImageMagick6 problem, and they suggest in general to use GraphisMagicks (GM), since the goal of GM ist to maintain a stable interface. It would be great if GM would make it into the plesk php packages.

So in general I love the approach of having new php versions managed by plesk, but apparently there are some things with common php applications that need to be sorted out.

 

[Kingsley]

will give you a reply later

 

[S.MohsenB]

hi
my server is centos 7.
how can i enable ZTS and pthreads on all php versions?
i tried to compile php 7.0 on my server but i got this error:
configure: error: utf8_mime2text() has new signature, but U8T_CANONICAL is missing. This should not happen. Check config.log for additional information.

i try to install libc-client-devel with yum ,but yum cant find this package for centos 7

 

[Kenneth_H]

The only issue is that the Odin version does not include support for MSSQL.
We currently use plesk compatible php version from the atomic repo in our CentOS 6.7 Plesk 12.5 environment
Would be great with added support MSSQL.

 

[UFHH01]

Hi S.MohsenB,

i try to install libc-client-devel with yum ,but yum cant find this package for centos 7

Please go to : http://rpmfind.net/ and put your desired "libc-client-devel" package into the search field. Download the desired RPM - package to your server and install it with "rpm -i NAME_OF_THE_RPM.rpm".
If you can't find the desired RPM for your operating system, it might not yet been ported to your desired OS.

PHP 7.0 is not yet officially released ( PHP 7.0.0 RC 6 Released - 29 Oct 2015 ) , so please be aware, that Plesk does not support PHP 7.0 right now.

 

[IgorG]

Plesk does not support PHP 7.0 right now.

Right. We never support beta versions of third-party software. You can try to use it on your own risk.

 

[Giorgos Kontopoulos]

php switching is needed as I have clients with older versions of CMS's that need php5.2
while other clients' CMS's run better on php5.6 I keep all customers satisfied this way

its a great feature thanks (running with nginx but not PHP-FPM as mentioned above)

A question:
not sure if I could run nginx and "PHP-FPM support from OS vendor" together

please advise of the benefits of one over the other or combined
could it break existing websites setup if enabled now ?

thanks

 

[S.MohsenB]

Right. We never support beta versions of third-party software. You can try to use it on your own risk.

so how can i enable ZTS on installed php on plesk?

 

[UFHH01]

Hi S.MohsenB,

so how can i enable ZTS on installed php on plesk?

You can't. ZTS support is a configure option, while compiling/build PHP from source. The build option

                --enable-maintainer-zts \
                --enable-pthreads \

... is needed on EACH of your PHP versions, either from vendor, or for shipped Plesk - PHP - versions, if you want to be able to have ZTS support.

Please be aware that own-build PHP - packages have no support and they won't get updated/upgraded/patched. In addition, other libraries on your server may not work with your own-bult PHP - package(s)... you have to compile/build these depending packages then as well on your own, in order to get them to work ( for example php5-json )... and again, you will not get any support, nor will these packages get updates/upgrades/patches. Another note: Since it can't be guaranteed that your own - compiled/built package(s) work together with existing, depending libraries on your server, it can't be guaranteed that Plesk and it's components will work together with your own compiled/built packages.

 

[Alan_SP]

I just encountered problem of not having xcache for PHP5.6. I have it in older versions. I know that xcache supports PHP 5.6 (http://xcache.lighttpd.net/). It would be great if you add xcache support in latest PHP as well as you added in previous PHP versions, where it works great.

 

[UFHH01]

Hi Alan_SP,

Odin decided to use "Zend Opcache", instead of "Xcache" with Plesk PHP versions 5.5+. Using both would mostly result in fatal errors. But feel free to deactivate "Zend Opcache" and install "Xcache" as additional module ( How-to described at: http://devblog.plesk.com/2015/08/adding-custom-php-modules-in-plesk/ ), if you really think, that you would like to prefer "Xcache" over "Zend Opcache".

 

[Alan_SP]

if you really think, that you would like to prefer "Xcache" over "Zend Opcache".

Thing is, I use it on my server where I host vBulletin forum and in long run I think that xcache covers it just fine for all my needs. As I need to go to newest versions of PHP, I also need xcache to support my forum caching needs. That's why I asked about xcache.

And, having already available xcache is certainly great commodity for myself (probably others also).

I'll certainly look how I should implement xcache by myself in newer PHP versions.

 

[trialotto]

Thing is, I use it on my server where I host vBulletin forum and in long run I think that xcache covers it just fine for all my needs. As I need to go to newest versions of PHP, I also need xcache to support my forum caching needs. That's why I asked about xcache.

And, having already available xcache is certainly great commodity for myself (probably others also).

I'll certainly look how I should implement xcache by myself in newer PHP versions.

@Alan_SP,

XCache has no typical or significant performance improvement over using OpCache. In fact, OpCache is less error-prone than XCache.

Furthermore, it is rather "not typical" to use XCache or OpCache for improving vBulletin performance.

To be honest, try

a) Nginx with FastCGI Cache (a very great and potent combination, without a necessity to mess with php modules), AND/OR

b) Redis Cache (a standard module, within the PHP 5.6.12 versions of Plesk 12.5.30),

and that will certainly get performance beyond the improvements that XCache can offer, certainly for a vBulletin.

It is just a suggestion, feel free to experiment with it.

Regards....

 

[Alan_SP]

Of course, any additional means for caching and thus speeding vBulletin forum is always welcome.

Thing is that vBulletin has only this options for included caching:

// ****** DATASTORE CACHE CONFIGURATION *****
// Here you can configure different methods for caching datastore items.
// vB_Datastore_Filecache - to use includes/datastore/datastore_cache.php
// vB_Datastore_APC - to use APC
// vB_Datastore_XCache - to use XCache
// vB_Datastore_Memcached - to use a Memcache server, more configuration below

Some vBulletin mods can use it to additionally speed things up, like vBOptimise from DBTech, which I use of course.

Are there additional information here on Plesk forum how to setup this caching?

 

[trialotto]

@Alan_SP,

In response to

Are there additional information here on Plesk forum how to setup this caching?

I must answer: no, not really, as far as I am aware of.

However, note the following:

a) using APC is not an option in the current Plesk stack (note that APC is "old" and has to be deemed to be deprecated)

b) using Memcached would be as simple as

- installing Memcached server (on Ubuntu: as simple as running the command "apt-get install memcached", all other required packages are already installed with Plesk)
- selecting the PHP 5.6.x version for a website
- activating the memcached module (a php module, not the memcached server), if it is not already activated
- configuring the site to use memcached (depends on the application, but the vBulletin documentation and config files are very clear about that)

and that is really the short version, from memory (my apologies, if I forget some steps, but this is only intended to give you a global idea of how to activate memcached caching).

In reality, I must admit that none of the caching options for vBulletin really significantly speeds up the process of serving the application.

A simple action, like implementing a SSD drive, often gives better results than implementing one of the caching options for vBulletin.

Again, I would advice you to experiment with Nginx + FastCGI Cache or Apache + OpCache + Redis Cache.

Regards....

 

[Alan_SP]

Thanks, I have SSD on server, but must see more info about Redis Cache.

I think that there's are instructions how to install memchache in Plesk module. I found it, it is here: http://devblog.plesk.com/2015/08/adding-custom-php-modules-in-plesk/

So, I can start using memchached. And of course, see more info on Redis Cache.

 

[trialotto]

@Alan_SP

I have added some comments to the specific DevBlog article, please read them for general background information.

However, the DevBlog article is somewhat irrelevant, that is, to some degree.

The php memcached module is already included in the php 5.6.12 version in Plesk 12.5.30, so compiling it (with PECL) is not required: just activate or deactivate via the Contol Panel.

If you want to use the php memcached module in Plesk 12.0.18, just read my comments in the DevBlog article.

With respect to Redis Cache, the following.

In essence, the php redis module is also included in the php 5.6.12 version in Plesk 12.5.30 and activation/deactivation via the Control Panel will suffice.

Note that you have to install the Redis server and also note that it is adviceable to uninstall a Memcached server (if any is present), before installing Redis server. This will certainly prevent some problems that can occur when both the php memcached and the php redis module are activated at the same time.

As a final note, the activation of the php memcached and/or php redis modules does not imply that the cache gets used (i.e. "hit" is the proper term).

The before mentioned modules simply allow the usage of a particular caching mechanism.

It is up to the "programmer/developer" to specify whether and in what way the cache will be used.

For vBulletin, a implementation of the memcached caching mechanism is already defined.

In contrast, the implementation of the Redis caching mechanism for vBulletin is barely existing.

However, one should be able "to borrow" some of the Redis implementations for WordPress, even though one has to be very careful in doing so.

But why does one want to experiment with Redis for vBulletin, if memory caching and/or memcached caching is already available?

A set of simple reasons: Redis is

- in-memory AND out-of-memory (i.e. disk-based), with optimal algorithms for distributing cache over memory and disk,
- much more flexible than Memcache(d),
- very, very much faster than Memcache(d).

Nevertheless, vBulletin + Redis seems to be something for the future.

In conclusion, try to get the php memcache module working first.....

Regards....