In cPanel & WHM software version 11.42, we will upgrade our internal PHP to version 5.4. This version offers dramatic improvements in performance, introduces new features, and removes deprecated functions. For more information about the changes you can expect from PHP 5.4,ย see the PHP 5.4.0 Release Announcement.
If you would like to test our new PHP 5.4 installation, it is now available through a special “next” build. This build should only be used on testing servers because it is unsupported and you will be unable to downgrade to a previous version of cPanel & WHM. We will explain how to get this build via our Plugin Devs mailing list. To subscribe to this mailing list, please contact our Integration Developer, Ruth Bavousett.
Below, we have outlined how this internal PHP upgrade could impact your cPanel customizations so that you can prepare for these changes now.
Removed PHP directives
Several features are removed in PHP 5.4, which could cause compatibility issues. The following core php.ini directives will no longer be available in cPanel & WHM version 11.42:
- gpc_order
- magic_quotes
- register_globals
- safemode
- y2k_compliance
If you are using the LiveAPI PHP Class to customize cPanel, then you should insure that your customizations will be compatible with the new version of PHP. You should also review and test your customizations if you use PHP Plugin pages, the deprecated .cpphp or .phpcp tags, or cPanelโs internal PHP in any way.
Upgraded RPMs
Because the following PEAR modules are bundled with PHP 5.4, they will not ship as separate RPMs when you upgrade to cPanel & WHM version 11.42:
- Archive_Tar
- Console_Getopt
- PEAR
- Structures_Graph
- XML_Util
We will update all of our other PEAR and PECL RPMs to use PHP version 5.4. For a full list of RPMs to be shipped with cPanel’s internal PHP, see our cPanel PHP documentation.
