Given we rely on Software Collections and PHP which have their own lifecycles, this is going to happen again. I propose that in the GUI, the projected EOL is indicated. So end users will not be surprised later.

We can do whatever is wanted here. The following have been suggested:

1) Support 5.6 for extended periods of time by:
Grab the relevant 5.6 RPMs from the CentOS 7.5.1804 repo and drop them into the 7.6.1810 ClearOS-CentOS repo.
Follow Remi's best effort 5.6 packaging @ https://blog.remirepo.net/post/2019/02/07/PHP-5.6-is-dead
Announce that 5.6 is going away soon
Deprecate 5.6 and maybe force the issue with an auto-upgrade? Or just leave 5.6 as-is and put a dire warning in the GUI?
Express in the UI that it is unsuppported

2) Soft deprecate 5.6 by
Modify the UI for PHP engines to exclude 5.6 from being listed unless it is already installed.
Announce the 5.6 is dead and give instructions on how to install if if you really want it. (which will make it show up in the UI.)
Place any community versions of php56 (ie. Remi's methods) in the contribs area.
Express in the UI that it is and unsupported

3) Immediately deprecate 5.6 by
Modify the UI for PHP engines to exclude 5.6 from being listed unless it is already installed.
Announce the 5.6 is dead and give instructions on how to install if if you really want it. (which will make it show up in the UI.)
Express in the UI that it is deprecated and unsupported

4) Hard Deprecate 5.6 and soft discourage 7.0 early
Modify the UI for PHP engines to exclude 5.6 from being listed.
Announce the 5.6 is dead and give instructions on how to install if if you really want it. Don't show it in the UI
Express in the UI that 7.0 is unsupported and is scheduled for deprecation

5) Or some other proposal

This is preferential voting so list the order you want here or propose something else. Presently, I'm going to propose a patch that will make php56 not required and also deal with the configuration recovery since we will need the ability to ignore other things like this in the future.

My vote is to toss 5.6 out on its ear. It isn't safe to run it or recommend it. Certainly we should provide knowledge on how to get around this but having the knowledge to manually support this is almost a pre-requisite (in my mind) for anyone that wishes to still run with it. In all cases, I would recommend that we onboard 7.2.

Marc Laporte wrote:

Dear Dave,

Thank you for this analysis.

PHP 7.0 is also unsupported:
https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
https://www.php.net/eol.php

But at least the PHP7.0 files are still in the upstream repos for 7.6.

The question is how do we manage the deprecation? Do we keep publishing the insecure 5.6> When 7.0 finishes do we keep publishing that as well? Or do we update the app at each point, putting a dire warning against the deprecated version and remove the ability to install it on a fresh install (at the moment it hangs the install because 5.6 is required but not available). None of these would catch an upgrader as the old version would remain on their system, but what happens to the re-installer (like me). Perhaps they had an app in 5.6, so on re-installation they can no longer use their app. Or do we make the deprecated versions command line install only?

Dear Dave,

Thank you for this analysis.

PHP 7.0 is also unsupported:
https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php
https://www.php.net/eol.php

As a workaround for the moment, you can create a new file /etc/yum.repos.d/clearos-centos-sclo-scl-rh75.repo to:

[code]clearos-centos-sclo-rh75]

name=CentOS-7 - x86_64 - CentOS Software Collections

baseurl=http://download1.clearsdn.com/centos/7.5.1804/sclo/$basearch/rh/

    http://download2.clearsdn.com/centos/7.5.1804/sclo/$basearch/rh/

    http://download3.clearsdn.com/centos/7.5.1804/sclo/$basearch/rh/

    http://download4.clearsdn.com/centos/7.5.1804/sclo/$basearch/rh/

gpgcheck=1

enabled=0

gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-CentOS-SIG-SCLo

enabling the repo when needed. It should be safe to leave it enabled as ClearOS will always install the latest packages, but please note the security concern.

At the moment, enabling the older repo is the only way to get the app installed which is not ideal, especially if you only want php7.1.