Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Jonathan Tsoi -
Number of replies: 10

Hi there,

Our school division is making a bit of leap from Moodle 3.2 to Moodle 3.7, and decided to let us change our server as well. We will be running Fedora 32 as our operating system, and we'll obviously have to install a few other dependencies like PHP.

Reading the docs here, I'm not completely clear on what PHP versions are supported in Moodle 3.7. Fedora 32 currently only has PHP 7.4 in their repos, but the language of the doc suggests that PHP 7.4 can only be used with Moodle 3.8.3, 3.9, and later versions. Is this correct, or could I use PHP 7.4 with Moodle 3.7? Can I use any minor version above PHP 7.1 in Moodle 3.7? 

Thanks for answering dumb questions like this,

Jonathan T.

EDIT: The doc in question: https://docs.moodle.org/dev/Moodle_and_PHP

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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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PHP max for Moodle 3.7 is 7.3. For details, see http://www.syndrega.ch/blog/#php-and-dbms-compatibility-of-major-moodle-releases.
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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Jonathan Tsoi -
Thank you very much Visvanath! Never seen this website before, definitely will be helpful for future upgrades as well!
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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Rick Jerz -
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Yes, nice find, Visvanath.
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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Howard Miller -
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I think he wrote it wink
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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
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smile

After the new release the "Moodle migration route" is in big demand. I linked it to my profile.

FYI: It is a "living" document. If you see any wrong info pl. send me a PM. Specially the columns MySQL max. and MariaDB max. are difficult ones.
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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Usman Asar -
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just an addition (was requested earlier too), I am using 2.7 with MariaDB 10.2.19, so older version can run on MariaDB latest as well.
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In reply to Jonathan Tsoi

Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Ken Task -
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PHP aside, think you need to re-think about Fedora distro.  Fedora is, among other things, a testbed for RedHat.  Therefore cycle is shorter ... no long term support version. 

Many years ago I did Fedora ... every 2 years version I had reached end of life - no more updates for anything.  So just about the time I got a Fedora server humming along, time to wipe it out and start over!   Could keep Moodle alive if one could find all the rpm's for upgrading PHP ... rpm - Red Hat Package Manager.   Pain in the arse!

Better to go with CentOS if wanting to stay with 'Red Hat Family'.  CentOS based upon RedHat Enterprise (which is RHE cept the eye candy and $ entitlements for updates). 

Reputable 3rd party repos exist for CentOS 7 and 8 ... remi has separate repos for PHP up to PHP 7.4 now.  MySQL has a repo of it's own for DB ... all the way up to their latest/greatest version 8 now.  Tons of blogs and how 2's exist 'out there' for using those repos and CentOS.

Moodle itself ... highly recommend using git.

https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Git_for_Administrators

My 2 cents!

'SoS', Ken


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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Jonathan Tsoi -
Morning (from my perspective in Canada anyways)! I woke up to an email between my manager and system admins and other programmers discussing OSes, and our system admins agreed to trying out CentOS! Their biggest drivers for initially picking Fedora before were a) an OS within the RHEL family and b) something that could have Cockpit installed into it, and CentOS fits both of those requirements. Looking forward to taking advantage of the documentation on Moodle!

The next challenge will be connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server database on a Windows server, but we'll cross that bridge (again) when we get to it.

Thanks to everyone who responded,
Jon.
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Re: Maximum PHP version? (Moodle 3.7.6)

by Ken Task -
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Been years since I looked into what improvements have been provided by those working with 'panels' on CentOS.   Have favored Webmin for years (perl based).   Cockpit, however, looks good.  Just tried it out on a VB CentOS 7 instance and so far so good.

Like it's terminal ... would mean one less service needed for outside access.

Wonder if there is any add-on modules for specific services ... like MySQL/MariaDB.   Will look around.

Thanks for sharing!

'SoS', Ken


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