In light of all the recent PHP fixing that happened last week, the RelEng team would like to get feedback on the following proposal to change the default PHP module in Rocky Linux 8.10 from 7.2 to 7.4. Please review and we look forward to hearing from you on the issue.
It does feel like something is wrong with the defaults; if you buy RHEL 8.10 and dnf install php, you get an unsupported version?
Default stream changes only decide what a fresh install resolves to: an existing 8.10 box with php:7.2 enabled keeps that stream until someone runs dnf module switch-to php:7.4 or resets the module, and dnf module list php shows the split - default [d] versus enabled [e]. Worth spelling out in the RFC how existing systems are meant to migrate, since dnf install php on them changes nothing. Does the proposal cover switching already-enabled installs, or only new systems?
Correct. The RFC is only covering what will be the new default.
There is a comment on that proposal that mentions that we are not changing what is currently enabled on systems.
According to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Application Streams Life Cycle | Red Hat Customer Portal
- RHEL 8 was released with PHP 7.2
- Support for PHP 7.2 (in RHEL 8) did end already in May 2021
- PHP 7.4 was released Nov 2020
- PHP 7.4 is now the “Full Life” stream for RHEL 8
Therefore, RHEL 8 should have changed the default to 7.4 already Nov’20 – May’21 (or whenever RH did decide that 7.4 has the full life support).
Keeping a version, which absolutely nobody does support, as default is not right.
One could even question why packages of EOL streams remain in repo.
While upstream-PHP 7.4 is already dead, the “supported in RHEL” 7.4 has its own life cycle.
Thank you for adding that clear information. That is what we are thinking as well. The default from upstream is set to 7.2. We want to change it in Rocky 8.10 to default to 7.4 so that new installs will use that stream version.
Currently how things are
dnf module list php
Last metadata expiration check: 0:05:39 ago on Wed 28 Oct 2026 10:59:52 AM EDT.
Rocky Linux 8 - AppStream
Name Stream Profiles Summary
php 7.2 [d] common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language
php 7.3 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language
php 7.4 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language
php 8.0 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language
php 8.2 common [d], devel, minimal PHP scripting language
Hint: [d]efault, [e]nabled, [x]disabled, [i]nstalled
sudo dnf install php
Last metadata expiration check: 0:08:01 ago on Wed 28 Oct 2026 10:58:03 AM EDT.
Dependencies resolved.
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Package Arch Version Repository Size
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Installing:
php x86_64 7.2.24-1.module+el8.4.0+413+c9202dda appstream 1.5 M
Installing dependencies:
apr x86_64 1.6.3-12.el8 appstream 128 k
apr-util x86_64 1.6.1-9.el8_10.1 appstream 106 k
brotli x86_64 1.0.6-5.el8_10 baseos 322 k
httpd x86_64 2.4.37-65.module+el8.10.0+40312+2c72bb9b.10 appstream 1.4 M
httpd-filesystem noarch 2.4.37-65.module+el8.10.0+40312+2c72bb9b.10 appstream 48 k
httpd-tools x86_64 2.4.37-65.module+el8.10.0+40312+2c72bb9b.10 appstream 115 k
mailcap noarch 2.1.48-3.el8 baseos 38 k
mod_http2 x86_64 1.15.7-10.module+el8.10.0+40257+286895ef.7 appstream 156 k
nginx-filesystem noarch 1:1.14.1-9.module+el8.4.0+542+81547229 appstream 23 k
php-cli x86_64 7.2.24-1.module+el8.4.0+413+c9202dda appstream 3.1 M
php-common x86_64 7.2.24-1.module+el8.4.0+413+c9202dda appstream 660 k
rocky-logos-httpd noarch 86.3-1.el8 baseos 24 k
Installing weak dependencies:
apr-util-bdb x86_64 1.6.1-9.el8_10.1 appstream 24 k
apr-util-openssl x86_64 1.6.1-9.el8_10.1 appstream 27 k
php-fpm x86_64 7.2.24-1.module+el8.4.0+413+c9202dda appstream 1.6 M
Enabling module streams:
httpd 2.4
nginx 1.14
php 7.2