In this tutorial we’ll install most awaited php version in CWP control panel as php switcher. This easy guide will guide you upon how to install PHP 8 easily.

PHP 8.1 comes with numerous improvements and new features such as:

• – Enumerations
• – Readonly properties
• – Fibers
• – Pure Intersection Types
• – never return type
• – First-class Callable Syntax
• – “final” modifier for class constants
• – New fsync and fdatasync functions
• – New array_is_list function
• – Explicit Octal numeral notatio

PHP 8.1 will not support your current php scripts/cms/themes. Check before shifting to php 8.1.

Step 1 :

Building files which are required to compile php 8.1

Centos 7/el7 :

yum install oniguruma oniguruma-devel gcc make gcc-c++ cpp kernel-headers.x86_64 libxml2-devel openssl-devel bzip2-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel freetype-devel openldap-devel postgresql-devel aspell-devel net-snmp-devel libxslt-devel libc-client-devel libicu-devel gmp-devel curl-devel libmcrypt-devel pcre-devel sqlite-devel db4-devel enchant-devel libXpm-devel mysql-devel readline-devel libedit-devel recode-devel libtidy-devel libtool-ltdl-devel libwebp libwebp-devel expat expat-devel libargon2 libargon2-devel  

Centos 8/stream/el8 :

yum install oniguruma oniguruma-devel gcc make gcc-c++ cpp kernel-headers.x86_64 libxml2-devel openssl-devel bzip2-devel libjpeg-devel libpng-devel freetype-devel openldap-devel postgresql-devel aspell-devel net-snmp-devel libxslt-devel libc-client-devel libicu-devel gmp-devel curl-devel libmcrypt-devel pcre-devel sqlite-devel libdb-devel enchant-devel libXpm-devel mysql-devel readline-devel libedit-devel recode-devel libtidy-devel libtool-ltdl-devel libwebp libwebp-devel expat expat-devel libmemcached libmemcached-devel libargon2 libargon2-devel  

Now we’ll build libzip and pcre2 :

Install EPEL :

yum install epel-release

Then install some more dependencies and remove the libzip package :
Centos 7 :

rpm -e --nodeps libzip libzip-devel
yum -y install cmake3 cmake zlib-devel --enablerepo=epel

Centos 8 :

rpm -e --nodeps libzip libzip-devel
yum install cmake zlib-devel
ln -s /usr/bin/cmake /usr/bin/cmake3

Installing Latest version Libzip from source :

cd /usr/local/src
rm -rf libzip*
wget https://libzip.org/download/libzip-1.5.1.tar.gz
tar zxvf libzip*
## for centos 7 :
cd libzip*
## for centos 8 :
cd libzip*/
mkdir build
cd build
/usr/bin/cmake3 ..
make && make install

Installing Latest version pcre2 from source :

cd /usr/local/src
rm -rf pcre2*
wget https://github.com/PhilipHazel/pcre2/releases/download/pcre2-10.39/pcre2-10.39.zip -O pcre2.zip  
unzip pcre2.zip
## for centos 7 :
cd pcre2-*
## for centos 8 :
cd pcre2-*/
./configure
make && make install

Install Latest libavif for new AVIF GD image support:

cd /usr/local/src
rm -rf master* libavif-* build-dir
wget https://github.com/AOMediaCodec/libavif/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
unzip master.zip
mkdir build-dir
cd build-dir
#Run this if you've centos 7/el7:
cmake3 ../libavif-main
#Run this if you've centos 8/stream/el8 or up:
cmake ../libavif-main
make
make install

Step 2 :

Configuring pkg-config path variables

run the below command :

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig:/usr/local/lib64/pkgconfig

After you installed deps and exporting path variable continue to install php 8 with this steps :

mkdir -p /usr/local/php-81
cd /usr/local/php-81
wget http://php.net/distributions/php-8.1.18.tar.gz
tar zxvf php-8.1.18.tar.gz
cd php-8.1.18
./configure --with-config-file-path=/usr/local/php --enable-cgi --with-config-file-scan-dir=/usr/local/php/php.d --with-zlib=/usr --enable-mbstring --with-zip --enable-bcmath --enable-pcntl --enable-ftp --enable-exif --enable-calendar --enable-sysvmsg --enable-sysvsem --enable-sysvshm --with-tidy --with-curl --with-iconv --with-gmp --with-pspell --enable-gd --with-avif --with-jpeg --with-freetype --enable-gd-jis-conv --with-webp --with-zlib-dir=/usr --with-xpm --with-openssl --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd --with-gettext=/usr --with-bz2=/usr --with-mysqli --enable-soap --enable-phar --with-xsl --with-kerberos --enable-posix --enable-sockets --with-external-pcre --with-libdir=lib64 --with-mysql-sock=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock --enable-intl --with-password-argon2 --enable-litespeed --with-ldap=/usr --with-ldap-sasl=/usr  
make
make install

it will take some time depends on your server speed when it is finished you can check the php version via command :

php -v

eg :

# php -v
PHP 8.1.18 (cli) (built: April 14 2023 11:09:47) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.0.0-dev, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies

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