Nextcloud and PHP8

 

PHP8 broke my Nextcloud instance !!!

I run a Nextcloud instance on a self hosted Arch linux server. Arch linux because I like the challenge 😁. Nextcloud due to privacy reasons. Recently Arch upgraded all php packages to php8. Nextcloud 20.x, the version I'm using currently can't work on php8 thus my instance went offline. In this article I'm gonna describe how I managed to fix this issue.

I run timeshift in my server via the cli. So I could have downgraded the php version. That would mean I would have to refrain from updating php and risk zero day vulnerabilities. That would nullify the whole purpose of running a self hosted Nextcloud instance for my sensitive data. Instead I went with dual php versions. I run php-fpm with Apache in my server so now I have to figure out how to run Fast CGI process manager with 2 php versions in the same Apache server. If you are thinking "well you are a SDE and you should know it", let me start by saying I neither use PHP nor Apache in my day job. As a matter of fact none of the tech stacks mentioned here are used in my day job. The exception is linux of course. 

Arch announced that PHP 7 legacy packages will be maintained with a limited support timeline. So I started by installing the required packages. 

`sudo pacman -S php7 php7-fpm php7-gd php7-imagick php7-intl php7-apcu`

Confirmed php7 is working by running `php7 -v`

Now I need to enable the needed extensions. Edit the ini `sudo vim /etc/php7/php.ini` and uncomment/changed the following,

extension=gd

extension=iconv

extension=pdo_mysql

extension=bz2

extension=bcmath

extension=gmp

extension=intl

opcache.enable=1

zend_extension=opcache

pocache.interned_strings_buffer=8

opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000

opcache.memory_consumpion=128

opcache.save_comments=1

opcache.revalidate_freq=1

memory_limit = 2048

output _buffering = off

Enable imagick in systemd service. `sudo vim /etc/php7/conf.d/imagick.ini` and uncomment,

extension=imagick

Edit the php-fpm systemd service `sudo vim /etc/php/php-fpm.d/www.conf` and uncomment/change the following,

env[HOSTNAME] = $HOSTNAME

env[PATH] = /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin

env[TMP] = /tmp

env[TMPDIR] = /tmp

env[TEMP] = /tmp

request_terminate_timeout = 3600

pm=dynamic

pm.max_children=120

pm.start_servers=12

pm.min_spare-servers=6

pm.max_spare_servers=18

Add the apcu settings to the php systemd service. `sudo vim /etc/php7/conf.d/apcu.ini` and add

extension=apcu

apc.enable_cli=1

apc.tl=7200

Now I need to tell my nextcloud virtual host to use the correct php version. Edit `/etc/httpd/conf/vhosts/[my vhost].conf` and add the following,

<FilesMatch \.php$>

      SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php-fpm7/php-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"

</FilesMatch>

Restart/Start the systemd services

`systemctl enable --now php-fpm7.service`

`systemctl restart httpd`

That's it. My Nextcloud instance is up and running again. Most of the above settings/configs are Nextcloud related optimizations I have done to my instance. I have a plan to write an article on setting up Nextcloud from scratch. Stay tuned...