PHP-FPM

PHP Versions

Centmin Mod compiles PHP from source and supports the following versions (configurable via Menu 5):

PHP Version	Status	Notes
PHP 8.5	Development	Latest development branch
PHP 8.4	Active	Current stable release
PHP 8.3	Active	Default in 141.00beta01
PHP 8.2	Security	Security fixes only
PHP 8.1	Security	Security fixes only
PHP 8.0	EOL	End of life; custom OpenSSL patches for EL9
PHP 7.4	EOL	Default in 132.00stable/140.00beta01; custom OpenSSL patches for EL9

EL9/EL10 Compatibility

PHP 7.4 and 8.0 on EL9/EL10 systems require Centmin Mod’s custom OpenSSL 1.1.1w patches for compatibility with the system’s OpenSSL 3.x libraries.

PHP Extensions

Centmin Mod includes the following PECL and built-in extensions:

Caching & Performance

Zend OPcache — Bytecode caching (built-in)
Redis (phpredis 6.3.0) — Redis client
igbinary — Binary serializer for Redis/sessions
Memcached — Memcached client extension
APCu — User data caching

Image & Media

ImagicK (3.8.1) — ImageMagick bindings
GD — Image processing with AVIF support (PHP 8.1+)
libheif — HEIF/HEIC image format

Database

MySQLi — MySQL improved driver
PDO MySQL — PDO driver for MySQL/MariaDB
MongoDB — MongoDB driver (PHP 8.3+)

Compression & Encoding

zstd — Zstandard compression
lz4 — Fast lossless compression
lzf — LZF compression
Brotli — Brotli compression
mbstring — Multibyte string handling

Security & Crypto

OpenSSL — SSL/TLS support
sodium — Modern cryptography
mcrypt — Available as addon for PHP 7.2–8.0

Other

Swoole — Async I/O and coroutines
mailparse — RFC 822 email parsing
GeoIP — Geographic IP lookups
IMAP — Email access protocol
intl — Internationalization

php.ini Customization

PHP configuration files are located at:

/usr/local/lib/php.ini — Main php.ini
/etc/centminmod/php.d/ — Additional .ini files (scan directory)
/usr/local/etc/php-fpm.conf — PHP-FPM main config
/usr/local/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf — Default pool configuration

Tip

For persistent PHP configuration changes, use /etc/centminmod/php.d/ scan directory. Files here survive PHP upgrades.

PHP-FPM Security

Centmin Mod applies security hardening to PHP-FPM by default:

PHP-FPM runs as the nginx user with limited permissions
expose_php = Off to hide PHP version headers
disable_functions restricts dangerous functions
Separate PHP-FPM pools can isolate users/sites

open_basedir Restrictions

The open_basedir directive restricts which directories PHP scripts can access. It can be set per-vhost in the Nginx configuration:

Nginx vhost config

fastcgi_param PHP_VALUE "open_basedir=/home/nginx/domains/domain.com/:/tmp/";

PHP Upgrade / Downgrade (Menu 5)

Use centmin.sh menu option 5 to upgrade or downgrade PHP to any supported version. This recompiles PHP from source with all extensions.

Terminal

# Set desired PHP version in custom_config.inc
PHP_VERSION='8.4.7'

# Then run centmin.sh and select option 5
centmin.sh

Terminal — Menu 5 Interactive Session

--------------------------------------------------------
     Centmin Mod Menu 141.00beta01 centminmod.com
--------------------------------------------------------
1).  Centmin Install
2).  Add Nginx vhost domain
3).  NSD setup domain name DNS
4).  Nginx Upgrade / Downgrade
5).  PHP Upgrade / Downgrade
6).  MySQL User Database Management
7).  Persistent Config File Management
8).  PostgreSQL Server Management
9).  Option Being Revised (TBA)
10). Memcached Server Re-install
11). MariaDB MySQL Upgrade & Management
12). Zend OpCache Install/Re-install
13). Install/Reinstall Redis PHP Extension
14). SELinux disable
15). Install/Reinstall ImagicK PHP Extension
16). Change SSHD Port Number
17). Multi-thread compression: zstd,pigz,pbzip2,lbzip2
18). Suhosin PHP Extension install
19). Install FFMPEG and FFMPEG PHP Extension
20). NSD Install/Re-Install
21). Data Transfer
22). Add Wordpress Nginx vhost + Cache Plugin
23). Update Centmin Mod Code Base
24). Exit
--------------------------------------------------------
Enter option [ 1 - 24 ] 5
--------------------------------------------------------
     ____   _   _  ____       _   _                                _
    |  _ \ | | | ||  _ \  _  | | | | _ __    __ _  _ __  __ _   __| |  ___
    | |_) || |_| || |_) |(_) | | | || '_ \  / _` || '__|/ _` | / _` | / _ \
    |  __/ |  _  ||  __/  _  | |_| || |_) || (_| || |  | (_| || (_| ||  __/
    |_|    |_| |_||_|    (_)  \___/ | .__/  \__, ||_|   \__,_| \__,_| \___|
                                    |_|     |___/

PHP Upgrade/Downgrade - Would you like to continue? [y/n] y

----------------------------------------------------------------
Install which version of PHP? (i.e. 7.3.33, 7.4.33, 8.0.30, 8.1.34, 8.2.30, 8.3.30, 8.4.19, 8.5.4, NGDEBUG)
PHP 7.x/7.1.x/7.2.x/7.3.x is GA Stable but still may have broken PHP extensions.
NGDEBUG is PHP 8.5 dev builds minus incompatible PHP extensions
----------------------------------------------------------------

Current PHP Version: 8.5.3
Latest PHP Version Installable: 8.5.4, 8.4.19, 8.3.30, 8.2.30, 8.1.34, 8.0.30

Enter PHP Version number you want to upgrade/downgrade to: 8.5.4

Do you still want to continue? [y/n] y

----------------------------------------------------------------
existing php.ini will be backed up at /usr/local/lib/php.ini-oldversion_110326-022804
----------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Detected PHP 8.5 branch.
You can compile Zend OPcache (Zend Optimizer Plus+) support
as an alternative to using APC Cache or Xcache cache.
But Zend OPcache only provides PHP opcode cache and
DOESN'T do data caching, so if your web apps such as Wordpress,
Drupal or vBulletin require data caching to APC or Xcache,
it won't work with Zend OPcache.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you want to use Zend OPcache [y/n] ? y

PHP Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) compiles are supported for PHP 7.4+ with GCC to improve PHP-FPM performance by 5-15%.

PHP-FPM Status Page

The PHP-FPM status page is available at /phpstatus and is restricted by IP whitelist in /usr/local/nginx/conf/phpstatus.conf. By default, only 127.0.0.1 is allowed.

To view from within SSH, use lynx or curl. To view from a browser, add your IP to the phpstatus.conf allow list.