How to install multiple versions of PHP on one server?

Question

I want to have two versions of PHP on one server and switch between them using a symlink.

I have PHP 5.3.2 installed. I want to install PHP 1.4.6 along side it and be able to switch back and forth between them eg;

/opt/php/5.3.2 /opt/php/5.4.21 /opt/php/live -> /opt/php/5.4.21 

as suggested here. However I'm struggling to find out how to do this.

I'm using an Ubuntu 10.04 server running Nginx and PHP-FPM/FastCGI.

To my mind apt-get seems to want to only have one version of each program so I guess having two versions side-by-side must avoid using apt-get or similar utils.

Answer 1

You'll have to compile it yourself. To get a compilation that is very close to the precompiled Ubuntu you can use the same config flags as in the Ubuntu source package but with a different --prefix:

 ./configure \ --prefix=/opt/php/5.3.2 \ --enable-force-cgi-redirect \ --enable-fastcgi \ --disable-debug \ --with-regex=php \ --disable-rpath \ --disable-static \ --with-pic \ --with-layout=GNU \ --with-pear=/usr/share/php \ --enable-calendar \ --enable-sysvsem \ --enable-sysvshm \ --enable-sysvmsg \ --enable-bcmath \ --with-bz2 \ --enable-ctype \ --with-db4 \ --without-gdbm \ --with-iconv \ --enable-exif \ --enable-ftp \ --with-gettext \ --enable-mbstring \ --with-pcre-regex=/usr \ --enable-shmop \ --enable-sockets \ --enable-wddx \ --with-libxml-dir=/usr \ --with-zlib \ --with-kerberos=/usr \ --with-openssl=/usr \ --enable-soap \ --enable-zip \ --with-mhash=yes \ --with-system-tzdata \ --without-mm \ --with-curl=/usr \ --with-enchant=/usr \ --with-zlib-dir=/usr \ --with-gd=/usr --enable-gd-native-ttf \ --with-gmp=/usr \ --with-jpeg-dir=/usr \ --with-xpm-dir=/usr/X11R6 \ --with-png-dir=/usr \ --with-freetype-dir=/usr \ --enable-intl \ --with-ttf=/usr \ --with-t1lib=/usr \ --with-ldap=/usr \ --with-ldap-sasl=/usr \ --with-mysql=/usr \ --with-mysqli=/usr/bin/mysql_config \ --with-pspell=/usr \ --with-unixODBC=/usr \ --with-recode=/usr \ --with-xsl=/usr \ --with-snmp=/usr \ --with-sqlite=/usr \ --with-sqlite3=/usr \ --with-mssql=/usr \ --with-tidy=/usr \ --with-xmlrpc \ --with-pgsql=/usr PGSQL_INCLUDE=`pg_config --includedir` \ --enable-pdo \ --without-pdo-dblib \ --with-pdo-mysql=/usr \ --with-pdo-odbc=unixODBC,/usr \ --with-pdo-pgsql=/usr/bin/pg_config \ --with-pdo-sqlite=/usr \ --with-pdo-dblib=/usr 

Of course, any of those modules you don't need can be removed from the configure (e.g. if you are never going to use snmp then change --with-snmp=/usr to --without-snmp or just leave it out altogether)

Answer 2

Maybe this helps you out and you can try this without IPSConfig.

http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-use-multiple-php-versions-php-fpm-and-fastcgi-with-ispconfig-3-centos-6.3