This file is part of: PHP Development Template Stack Copyright (c) 2024 Nico Jan Eelhart This source code is licensed under the MIT License found in the ‘LICENSE.md’ file in the root directory of this source tree.

Add other PHP versions into this container

In the docker file ../ApachePHPWebService/Dockerfile_Apache_PHP_cont we have include the PHP repository for other PHP versions, see the comment:

‘2) Include repositories for other PHP versions’ in that file.

The steps described in this document depend on that repository to fetch the ‘other PHP’ versions. Note that we also need the related PHP fpm package from that repository.

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1. Requirements

• A running container created with the Docker compos file: compose_apache_php_cont.yml (which uses: ‘Dockerfile_Apache_PHP_cont’). See documentation file:how to create a development container
• The bind mounted folders, which should already be there when you have a running container(installed with the above link).

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2. Steps to install an additional PHP version

Let’s assume you want to add PHP 5.6 (that’s old, time to upgrade your site perhaps) to the container.

• Check if the version is in the repository apt-cache search php5.6
• Install it, if the above command returns it apt update && apt install -y php5.6 php5.6-fpm
• Update the start.sh shell script, this is mounted (bind) in the folder ‘shared-container-files’ at the host, you can therefor update in the Host or in the container (for the location see the docker file: Dockerfile_Apache_PHP_cont) Edit the file(Unix EOL) and make sure the line with: – /usr/sbin/php-fpm8.2 -F & is changed to: – /usr/sbin/php-fpm5.6 -F & (change the numbers to to the version you require)
  
  
• Update the httpd-vhosts.conf shell script, this is mounted (bind) in the folder ‘shared-container-files’ at the host. Edit the file(Unix EOL) and make sure the line with:

SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost/"
# is changed to:
SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php5.6-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost/

(You could also first check if the file: ls /run/php/php5.6-fpm.sock exists, this should be done by the php5.6-fpm package)

• While this should be enough you can also execute the following command, to make sure the shell command ‘php -v’ will return(and thus uses) your installed version as default.

update-alternatives --set php /usr/bin/php5.6 # use which php5.6 to find this location

• Restart the container (restart Apache2 is not sufficient!)

Run: http://localhost:8071/phpinfo.php

Note:
Tested with PHP 8.2 and PHP 5.6, Versions in between are not tested but should work (although it’s PHP, so ‘you never can tell)’