Approx one year ago, I installed Virtualmin on Centos 7.9, and it has been running without a problem during this period. I use PHP 7.2 and some applications have given a warning that I should upgrade PHP. Virtualmin has been working perfectly and without an issue.
I will now install a new server. My first idea is to make it quite identical to the first one, based om Centos 7.9 except maybe a newer PHP version, if that can be done without to muck problems. That will eventually be 7.4, I thought.
What will be the best choice og PHP for Virtualmin on Centos 7.9, should I keep the 7.2 version or make an upgrade to PHP version 7.4? (When the main criteria is stability and ease of use.)
Is it other Linux versions that would be a better choice than Centos 7.9 for the next server, or will it be an good idea to just use Centos 7.9 for the remaining two ears it will receive updates?
Don’t know if an PHP upgrade like this is a good idea or not:
The main criteria for PHP version will be defined (and redefined, with passage of time) by the set of PHP apps that you wish to host and run on your server.
All the latest releases of all supported versions of PHP 7.x can be considered to be the most stable and the most easy to use and be assigned any other virtues that you deem necessary, as newer releases of software are always better than earlier releases, with the notable exception of Windows 8.
The safest and most stable and most easy to do method of installing additional versions of PHP to Virtualmin is
This is also part of the official documentation for Virtualmin. I wouldn’t follow any other guide to installing additional versions of PHP to Virtualmin.
To answer your question: install 7.3 and 7.4 in addition to the existing 7.2 that you already have, if your server has memory enough.
You should not be deploying new servers with CentOS 7.
CentOS 8 is fine (it reached EOL yesterday, but can be converted to Rocky or Alma). Rocky and Alma will be directly supported by the installer for Virtualmin 7, which is coming soon (within days).
This would be a good time to update the promotional sidebar on the Webmin home page, which still proclaims that Virtualmin 5 is coming “From the farthest reaches of space…”. It seems that VM6 and soon, VM7 have overtaken it on the long journey.
I went with ubuntu 20.04LTS when it came out which comes with php 7.4. since ubuntu packports i am not worried about php going eol. once 22.04 LTS is fully supported by virt i intend to move to it for php 8.1. i will run it for a copule-3 years then go with the next ubuntu lts release.
