Newbie question re. PHP install/update

[StefanN]

Hi. I am a newbie to CentOS and everything it offers.

I am working for an IT company. Currently we have CentOS 6.6 installed. We need to update our PHP from 5.3.3 til 5.4+, but the guy we had hired to do that, has left us. We have quite a few users/servers. If I log in, using PuTTY, as root and enter yum install php54w - then it will give me the option to update the PHP version using Virtualmin, right? It wont replace the old PHP with a new one, on every single virtual server, right?

I know it may sound like a stupid question, but as I'm new to this, I want to be sure, that I won't mess things up for every single user/virtual server .

[TrevorH]

Any package named like php54w would come from a third party repo called Webtatic and we do not recommend use of that here. Unfortunately nor do we support systems with control panels like VirtualMin on them as they make so many changes to the underlying operating system that they are no longer CentOS. And, yes, if you install php54w then it will replace the system supplied php and it will take effect on all vhosts on that machine.

Personally I would recommend that you look at IUS for php versions that completely replace the CentOS supplied ones - which is what php54w would do. If you need parallel installable copies then look at Software Collections (SCL) as those can be persuaded to work alongside existing versions with a big enough hammer. An even better method of using multiple php versions is to use virtual machines.

[usr242]

Is there some reason that the SCL package isn't being referenced?:
http://wiki.centos.org/AdditionalResour ... tories/SCL

I noticed an earlier thread too where no one suggested this option to someone needing a version greater than 5.3.3.