How to run different websites with different versions of PHP

Description:

In this article, you will learn how to run different websites with different versions of PHP. If you run a system or web server, you need to know how to install and use different versions of PHP on the same server. This is very helpful when you have more than one PHP programme on your server and each one works with a different version of PHP. If you want to know how to enable or disable php mod, then click here.

Information of Default PHP version:

Step 1 : First check the current version of PHP, by creating a file in the default directory with the below code of phpinfo page.

# vim /var/www/html/info.php

<?php
// Show all information, defaults to INFO_ALL
phpinfo();
// Show just the module information.
// phpinfo(8) yields identical results.
phpinfo(INFO_MODULES);

?>

 Step 2: now go to browser and search for : server_ip/info.php

Run sites with multiple versions of PHP

1. By .htaccess method

Step 1.1 First ensure that parameter “AllowOverload" is set to "All” in /etc/apache/apache.conf.

To confirm this, open the file, /etc/apache/apache.conf( In our case we used apache service on Ubuntu) and search for below line code.

# cat /etc/apache/apache.conf

<Directory /var/www/>
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
        AllowOverride All
        Require all granted
</Directory>

Step 1.2 Now create or open the .htaccess file from /var/www/html/site1/ and paste the following:

# vim /var/www/html/site1/.htaccess

<FilesMatch ".(php4|php5|php3|php2|php|phtml)$">
# From the Apache version 2.4.10 and above, use the SetHandler to run PHP as a fastCGI process server
SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock|fcgi://103.209.145.9"
</FilesMatch>

Note: To run your site with another php version, just change the phpx.y-fpm parameter on the above line ( line- 4)as per your requirement.

Step 1.4: Now run the below command to reflect the changes.

#  a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif  

Step 1.3: Now to check the current version of PHP for this website, create another info.php file but this time in /var/www/html/site/ and fill the info.php file with same content.

 go to your browser and search for server_ip/site1/info.php

2. By Virtual Host method

Step 2.1: To use the Virtual Host method, you need to open the config file in which you have defined the <VirtualHost > tag and add the below line to your configuration file.

 <FilesMatch \.php$>
      # For Apache version 2.4.10 and above, use SetHandler to run PHP as a fastCGI process server
      SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"
    </FilesMatch>

Step 2.2: Now just restart the web server's service. and go to browser to search the php.info just you did in step: 1.3

How to change the default version of PHP on your system

Step 1: To change the default version of your php running on your machine. Just enter the below command.

 # update-alternatives --config php 

So this is how you run different websites with different versions of PHP