CentOS6 php 5.4 + mcrypt Problems

I and others have posted before about problems encountered trying to get PHP 5.4 (or 5.5 for that matter) running with centos 6

the multi php howto posted on here works to a degree - but I need mcrypt (kinda usual these days) and it isnt available via scl

The only solutions I can find are hacky at best and liab.le to mess up somewhere

php 5.3 is now eol (I understand the backporting means its secure - but its EOL and honestly it seeems crazy to me that rh are still dishing it up

afaik centos 7 / vm combo is still not stable so thats out

I used rhel/centos for 10 years and virtualmin for as long as its been out, and I never came across so much hassle trying to get a web server to run. its crazy.

Does anybody have a solution that works out of the box, and is upgradeable to get virtualmin and php54 and mcrypt running under fcgi on centos 6 please?
if so please share it

l.

+1 here!

its been a couple months and I find my self struggling with this again, so I ask the question again:

Does anybody have a solution that works out of the box, and is upgradeable to get virtualmin and php54 and mcrypt running under fcgi on centos 6 please?

if so please share it