Plesk for Linux
kb: how-to
ABT: Group B
Applicable to:
- Plesk for Linux
Question
PHP 5.6 is missing from Plesk Installer.
Is it possible to install PHP 5.x in Plesk on Debian 9, 10 and Ubuntu 18, 20, 22 via Plesk Installer?
Answer
By default, these operating systems support only PHP 7.x compatible with OpenSSL 1.1. Also, PHP 5.x is outdated version.
Therefore, it is not possible to install PHP 5.x via Plesk Installer and we DO NOT recommend installing it manually as it may break web applications and compromise whole server security bringing them out of Plesk support scope.
Comments
9 comments
First we ask our customer if they're using the same CMS / plugins for all sites.
If so, we lookup if they are all PHP 7+ compatible.
If all checks out we choose Debian 9, because of OS Version Upgrade reasons.
Otherwise, we stick with CentOS 7.
Technically, it is however possible to support PHP 5.6 on Debian 9 as Ondrej (the main PHP packager for Debian) supports this:
https://github.com/oerdnj/deb.sury.org/issues/566
https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/2667
@Stéphan Schamp, thank you for letting us know your user experience.
In case PHP 5.x is required for Debian 9, feel free to submit a feature request here.
Hi Ivan,
I've come here from the Plesk forum. https://talk.plesk.com/threads/use-php-5-6-plesk-17-8-11.348664/#post-853197
The Plesk software requirements https://docs.plesk.com/release-notes/onyx/software-requirements/ mention that 5.x is available on Onyx (which includes 17.8.11).
There's also conflicting KB articles here https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001008334-Which-PHP-versions-will-be-supported-in-Plesk-17-8-for-Linux- indicating all versions that 17.5 supports will be in 17.8.
Not until you read this article https://docs.plesk.com/en-US/onyx/administrator-guide/web-hosting/php-management/installing-php.75153/ does it mention that 5.6 may not be available.
As a Plesk partner, we really need 5.x to be supported to keep customers on LTS versions and supported Plesk versions. Seeing PHP 5.6 can be installed on 18.04 LTS manually, I'm sure it can be included via Plesk.
Compiling PHP or moving everything to alt-php are not really options for us.
Thanks
Hi, @Nick Stevens!
PHP 5.x and lower is not available only for new operation systems like Debian 9 or Ubuntu 18.04, so it is possible to use older operation systems that supports PHP 5.6 out of the box for the clients that needs it.
Overall PHP 5.6 will reach End of Life in three month as stated here: https://secure.php.net/supported-versions.php
So I do not think that it will be implemented for new OSes as uservoice request is closed by someone from our development team: PHP5.6 on Debian 9
You can add PHP 5.6 for Debian 9 or Ubuntu 18.04 as a custom PHP and Plesk will work with it in case PHP itself is working fine, see the following article: How to add a custom PHP version?
What about upgrades where PHP5x is already installed?
Hello Adam Beecher
According to the information I have, such versions stay on the server.
However, I strongly recommend 1st to make a clone of a production server and upgrade the clone to verify that everything works as expected.
Thanks Ivan. Looks good.
I guess it is also not possible to install PHP 5.x on AlmaLinux and RockyLinux right? Only 7.x up to 8.x?
Is it possible to download and install a specific deb plesk php package manually somewhere? A public ftp? I need the 7.2 package on DEB11.
I know how to add it manually using sury repos, but i specifically need the LiteSped executables since i'm not using apache/nginx. Unfortunately sury doesn't support LS.
I'm currently compiling lsphp7.2 manually on each host, but is very time consuming. Can you please point me to the deb package folder on autoinstaller ftp?
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