DietPi-Software | ownCloud/Nextcloud: PHP7.0 support will be dropped soon

[MichaIng]

ownCloud, as well as Nextcloud, plan to drop PHP7.0 support soon.

On ownCloud this will be upcoming v10.1: https://doc.owncloud.org/server/administration_manual/installation/system_requirements.html EDIT: ownCloud 10.1 still supports old PHP versions but not yet PHP7.3! Also v10.2 will not yet support PHP7.3! Nextcloud v15 already shows a warning on admin panel, v16, expected until mid of 2019 most likely will drop support. EDIT: Nextcloud 16 now released with dropped PHP7.0 support!

Debian Stretch most likely will stay on PHP7.0 and Buster release is most likely afterwards. And it takes much time until Raspbian Buster is released then and much more until we (can) drop Stretch support of course.

So either we need to limit max version for those clouds, similar to Jessie => NC13, or we upgrade PHP version on Stretch to at least PHP7.1, better PHP7.2 or even PHP7.3 directly. This brings of course the risk that other software titles do not work anymore then... Perhaps allow multiple PHP versions then, if not possible without, which should generally work well since PHP7.

[Fourdee]

@MichaIng

Interesting, NC/OC must require features from php 7.1+.

In theory, a sub version of PHP should not break software. However, if we were to offer 7.2 installs on Stretch, we need to do some extensive testing.

Appears all archs are supported via this repo: https://packages.sury.org/php/pool/main/p/php7.2/ https://linuxhostsupport.com/blog/how-to-install-php-7-2-on-debian-9/

@MichaIng

I'd suggest we go with PHP7.3 directly on all distros? But as above, extensive testing required if we do.

[MichaIng]

@Fourdee Jep Ondrej is official PHP package maintainer anyway, so the repo/packages themselves are trustworthy and should work fine themselves.

But on Debian repo, it is guaranteed that all software is compatible with the offered PHP version, which is not the case for any newer version from outside of Debian repo of course. So jep, requires intense testing, and I already know that ownCloud currently (10.0.10) does not yet support PHP7.3, why I disabled it on Buster for now: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/pull/2361/commits/a454034c0060f815e88deee8048bb89404b43ac2

So for the first, I would wait until PHP7.0 support is really dropped for a certain software title, e.g. next ownCloud or Nextcloud release most properly. As quick fix, we can simply freeze the downloaded version to the last one with PHP7.0 support, similar to what I've done with Nextcloud on Jessie (max v13). Internal updater will inform user and block further updates. Actually interesting that ownCloud currently still works on Jessie, so supports PHP5.6, but will drop PHP7.0 support directly with 10.1 according to docs 🤔.

However then (or already now start to) test all our offered software with PHP7.2, which most properly will cause less issues? I mean PHP7.3 can be tested as well, but since even ownCloud does not yet support it and I also read topics on Nextcloud forum/GitHub about some minor issues, I bet there will be much more. And especially on Jessie, the APT based packages are even older, so might cause even more problems then those on Stretch. Best might be to simply freeze or disable software versions with PHP5 support drop (as part of Jessie support fade) and concentrate testing on Stretch.

So we don't need to hurry from my point of view, but do careful tests instead, respectively read docs about PHP requirements of software that we pull from upstream.

[d-tamm]

This affects not only the main Nextcloud/Owncloud installation. Also some addons have their own requirements on php, e.g. passwords (https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/passwords) requires php >= 7.1.0. Therefore, these addons cannot currently be used in a standard DietPi installation. I will try to follow the instructions in @Fourdee's links and try to get a more recent php up and running. Otherwise I might go back to other distros :(

[MichaIng]

@d-tamm Damn, so to allow full features, we need to enable higher PHP versions earlier than I was hoping. I guess there are as well other software titles that earlier/later drop PHP7.0 support.

This is a basic issue of Debian then, as long as they do not update the PHP version on stable branch, which I doubt.

The problem on the other end is still that we don't know which other software titles might NOT yet support any PHP version above 7.0 🤔. Perhaps we need to allow installing both versions, which then breaks the ability to install certain software combinations that use webservers, since you can easily only configure them to use a single PHP version...

I am a bid shocked, that PHP7.0 support is dropped, while the most used (or second most, depending on which statistic you grab) server distro (Debian) officially ships it. It is okay for one-purpose servers, but if you want to run different web sites/services on it, this makes things very complicated. New features based on new PHP versions are great, but those should be optional until the weighted majority of distros officially ship them, from my point of view 😉.

[MichaIng]

PHP7.3 support check

🈯️ Nextcloud 🈴 ownCloud

  This version of ownCloud is not compatible with PHP 7.3
  You are currently running PHP 7.3.4-1+0~20190412071350.37+stretch~1.gbpabc171.

• Damn, they even block install...
• Was scheduled for end of 2018: https://doc.owncloud.org/server/10.1/admin_manual/release_notes.html#official-php-7-2-support
• 10.2.0 release scheduled for April, currently in RC1: https://github.com/owncloud/core/wiki/Maintenance-and-Release-Schedule
• Okay 10.2.0RC1 does not support PHP7.3 as well, same error message...
• PR for PHP7.3 support is up, but since OC10.2.0 is already in RC stage, I guess it does not make it anymore. However let's see: https://github.com/owncloud/core/pull/34559#issuecomment-485929235
• UPDATE: Nope, no PHP7.3 support with ownCloud 10.2.0: https://github.com/owncloud/core/pull/34559#issuecomment-485992522 Hmm, I am thinking what to do since ownCloud is really the only software we offer that doesn't support it so far...

Okay so if ownCloud 10.2.0 will support 7.3, we can ship it with DietPi 6.23, it not then we will go with PHP7.2 for now, although I am not happy with this, since then we only need to upgrade again and need to handle still different PHP versions for Jessie+Stretch and Buster... And on Buster systens we then need to disable ownCloud.

But let's see the other installs we offer:

• [x] Ampache
• [x] O!MPD
• [x] Koel
• [x] Allo Web GUI 🈺 (2/2) ErrorExceptionUndefined variable: lsusb_str (View: /var/www/allo/resources/views/frontend/status.blade.php) Not related to PHP7.3, just because there is no USB device on VM, thus the lsusb output/string is empty. Should be gracefully handled by Allo web GUI. @Fourdee 🈯️ Resolved after adding a virtual USB port
• [x] ruTorrent 🈺 Shairport-Sync uses port 5000 as well, double use with rTorrent. We should switch one to it's own port.
• [x] Aria2
• [x] Pydio
• [x] phpBB
• [x] Wordpress
• [x] FreshRSS
• [x] PHP image gallery
• [x] BaiKal
• [x] LinuxDash
• [x] PhpSysInfo 🈺 file_exists(/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp) - the file does not exist on your machine Shows a big warning triangle at the top of the page. Yeah I know it's a VM without this info, so don't bother me with a huge warning that cannot be dismissed... 🤣
• [x] phpMyAdmin
• [x] Pi-hole

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  OpenSSL/libssl1.1 pinning required to not break Stretch/Jessie Lighttpd version: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/issues/2734

[MichaIng]

Jep, so all web applications we offer work fine with PHP7.3 but ownCloud which will not support it for at least one month more (assuming current ~1 month patch schedule), perhaps longer until next minor or major release since PHP7.3 support does not sound like a patch?

Dilemma:

• If we ship PHP7.2 now, upgrading all existing systems, we will sooner or later have users asking for PHP7.3 or even face software that drop PHP7.2, so we need to upgrade a second time.
• But upgrading PHP is a bid risky and at least it requires users to do all custom PHP config changes a second time (of course we will backup the whole /etc/php to backport changes from).
• Furthermore PHP7.3 is the "default" PHP version from Ondrejs repo (e.g. G_AGI php will install PHP7.3). So when adding this repo it might happen that PHP7.3 is installed accidentally.
• Installing PHP7.2 means we still have two different versions (7.3 on Buster), which I actually want to avoid.
• Finally I am simply not keen to hold back up-to-date versions (when already touching them) just for a single software title...

... thinking... Okay we already have the infrastructure for handle different PHP versions. So we will now install PHP7.3 for all users BUT those who have ownCloud installed. Those get PHP7.2 instead. PHP7.2 is as well installed for fresh ownCloud installs. If PHP was already installed before (PHP7.3), then the ownCloud option will be hidden from DietPi-Software. I think this is the best we can do.

[MichaIng]

PR up: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/pull/2735

[MichaIng]

Merged! This is a giant one and I hope we find much testers during beta phase. I tested up and down on Jessie, Stretch and Buster with all relevant software titles installed and all webserver combinations, however it is hard to test all possible situations and it IS a major PHP version upgrade for Jessie at least.

Nextcloud <14 is required to be upgraded to NC14 as well. There should be only a hand full Jessie users with Nextcloud (13) installed, if any. Already since Nextcloud prompts with a big warning that this version has fully been dropped from support/EOL etc. So if any issue occurs (also I tested this several times now), then we will provide fast per-user support. Great is that our cloud migration script (created to make migration from DietPi v159 to v6.0 easier that time) serves greatly here to create a full recoverable Nextcloud backup: https://github.com/MichaIng/DietPi/blob/master/.meta/dietpi-cloud-migration And in the end the benefit of PHP7.3 and Nextcloud 16 is enormous so should totally worth the risk of both upgrades 😉.

However I will go through survey files to check for amount Jessie + Nextcloud users.