Changing PHP Version

#Changing PHP Version on Plesk

Server currently runs on 5.4.33, however we have configured an additional version of PHP 5.3 for a site which requires a PHP 5.3 Depreciated Function. This is installed in /usr/local/php53-cgi/. We can switch Domains over to this version manually if requires as follows. The guide below uses example.com as the domain.

First we create a PHP wrapper.

cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin
mkdir .cgi_wrapper
cd .cgi_wrapper
touch .phpwrapper

Edit the .phpwrapper file just created, and populate it with the following:

#!/bin/sh
export PHPRC=/var/www/vhosts/example.com/etc/
export PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN=4
export PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS=1000
exec /usr/local/php53-cgi/bin/php-cgi

Set the necessary permissions and privileges for the created files and directories (Run ls -l /var/www/vhosts/example.com to find the domains username - listed in the below example as example):

chgrp psaserv /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin
cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin
chmod 101 .cgi_wrapper
chmod 500 .cgi_wrapper/.phpwrapper
chown example:psacln .cgi_wrapper -R
chattr -R +i .cgi_wrapper

Make Apache aware of our new PHP wrapper. Plesk offers an option to change the httpd setup per vhost (it could be either domain or subdomain). We will use this option to tell Apache that, as per our example, example.com needs to use our new PHP wrapper instead of the one provided by Plesk:

cd /var/www/vhosts/example.com/conf

Create a vhost.conf file with the following content:

<Directory /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs>
RemoveHandler fcgid-script
<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
    AddHandler fcgid-script .php
    <Files ~ (\.php)>
        SetHandler fcgid-script
        FCGIWrapper /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin/.cgi_wrapper/.phpwrapper .php
        Options +ExecCGI
        allow from all
    </Files>
</IfModule>
</Directory>

So far, we have told Apache not to use the default Plesk PHP wrapper (RemoveHandler fcgid-script) and instead, we created a new handler for PHP files. When executing PHP files on the "example.com" domain, Apache will call the new PHP wrapper and use the version that was installed.

Reconfigure the "example.com" domain:

/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/httpdmng --reconfigure-domain example.com

Test that the Apache Configuration is ok, then Restart Apache:

service httpd configtest
service httpd restart

mattclements/changing_php_version.md