EasyApache 4 & CLI based PHP utilities

With the release of EasyApache 4 in WHM 58 there are various changes to how PHP is managed. The most obvious being that EasyApache 4 brings support for installing multiple PHP versions alongside each other. However with multiple versions of PHP being installed on the server it’s easy to lose track of your command-line based PHP utilities and their PHP requirements.

Certain PHP packages like Composer, Drush, and WP-cli prefer to be run with the latest version of PHP. Unfortunately, having multiple PHP versions can mean not knowing which PHP will execute the utility when you call it directly. This article will detail a few methods to specify which PHP version should be used in instances like this.

Pre-flight Check:

• These instructions are intended specifically for cPanel-based servers running WHM prior to version 58.
• Command line access via SSH may be necessary to follow the examples.
• The server will need to have EasyApache 4 active.
• PHP 7 will be necessary to follow the provided examples.

Option #1: Directly Call the PHP Binary

The most basic option to workaround these issues is to directly call the PHP binary you need before executing the script. While this can be effective and will work as expected most of the time, certain utilities will not work when using this method.

/opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/usr/bin/php someScript.php

The above command will specifically call the 7.0 version of PHP and will execute the someScript.php file within that version of PHP. If they are also installed on the server, the alternative PHP versions can be found at:

• /opt/cpanel/ea-php55/root/usr/bin/php
• /opt/cpanel/ea-php56/root/usr/bin/php
• /opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/usr/bin/php

Option #2: Use scl to Specify PHP Versions

As mentioned, certain PHP utilities are not provided as basic PHP files and are stored in the PHAR format. These utilities will not execute properly with the above method for specifying the PHP version. For these types of utilities you will need to specify the PHP version using a command called `scl`.

This command is a utility that allows running software in an environment packaged as a ‘Software Collection’. To be brief a ‘Software Collection’ is a way of defining an alternate location to a certain software. Fortunately, WHM provides predefined collections for the various versions of PHP supported by EasyApache 4.

The syntax of this command is as follows:

scl enable {SoftwareCollection} '{CommandToRun}'

Where you replace {SoftwareCollection} with the needed collection [ea-php55, ea-php56, or ea-php70], and you replace {CommandToRun} with the command, utility, or script you need to run.

A good way to highlight this is to review the difference in the following outputs:

root@noms [~]# php -v

root@noms [~]# scl enable ea-php70 'php -v'

As you can see when calling PHP by itself we get the default version, but when using scl we explicitly called the PHP 7.0 collection and get results to match.

Example #1: Executing a utility [Composer]:

root@noms [~]# scl enable ea-php70 'composer --version'

Example #2: Running a PHP script:

root@noms [~]# scl enable ea-php70 './someScript.php'

With these key tips and tricks you should now be equipped with the necessary tools to run CLI utilities on a server using EasyApache 4. If you have any questions or are not comfortable making these changes yourself, please feel free to contact Heroic Support®.