Updating PHP Version

On occasion Altis will make a PHP version update available. Once a particular version of PHP is out of support, updating to a later version will become mandatory to help protect the security of your application.

There are 2 key steps to getting ready for a new version of PHP:

• Checking your application is compatible with the new version and making any necessary updates
• Requesting the PHP upgrade for your cloud environments

Altis Compatibility Chart

Checking PHP Version Compatibility

Note: Before carrying out the following tasks locally, ensure your application is fully installed so that all code that will be deployed to the cloud is present.

Switch Off Composer's Platform Check

In your composer.json you may have some code like the following:

{
    "config": {
        "platform": {
            "php": "8.3"
        }
    }
}

If present, and the PHP version does not match the version you are upgrading to you should update it to reflect the new target PHP version.

In addition you must add the following setting in the config property of your composer.json file:

{
    "config": {
        "platform-check": false
    }
}

This will prevent Composer from exiting your application early while your cloud environment is being updated.

Update All Altis Modules

The first task is to ensure your application has the latest patch versions of all Altis modules by running the following command in your project root:

composer update "altis/*" --with-all-dependencies

Afterwards commit the updated composer.lock file.

Run The Compatibility Check

The next step is using the PHP Compatibility package for PHP Code Sniffer. The guide below shows you how to install and use this tool globally, however you may wish to install them directly in your project and use them in CI as part of your code linting process.

First install the standard and dependencies using the following command:

composer global require dealerdirect/phpcodesniffer-composer-installer phpcompatibility/php-compatibility

Next run the standard against your codebase for the target PHP version, in this example PHP 8.3:

phpcs -p --standard=PHPCompatibility \
  --runtime-set testVersion 8.3 \
  --extensions=php \
  -d memory_limit=1G \
  --ignore=wordpress,vendor/altis,\*/tests/\* .

This can take a long time to run so may wish to run it just in your custom code directories.

Note: You must fix anything reported as an "Error". Warnings can be ignored at your discretion.

Fix any reported errors (ignoring those listed in the section below) by upgrading affected third party plugins and amending first party custom code as needed following your standard code review and deployment processes.

Known Warnings and Errors

There are some known warnings in the following packages that you can safely ignore. Altis guarantees its core packages and their dependencies are verified as working with the versions outlined in the compatibility chart at the top of this page.

• aws/aws-sdk-php
• humanmade/batcache
• phpunit/phpunit
• wp-phpunit/wp-phpunit
• lucatume/wp-browser

You can add these to the ignored directories in the command when checking if desired; e.g. --ignore=vendor/aws,vendor/guzzlehttp,....

Upgrading the Altis Cloud Environment

When you're happy your custom application code, themes, plugins, and dependencies are fully compatible with the target PHP version, it is recommended to test the upgrade in a non-production environment first.

Steps to change the PHP version:

1. Log in to the Altis Dashboard.

2. Select the environment where you want to update the PHP version (e.g., Development, Staging, or Production).

3. Navigate to: Settings → Environment

4. In the Environment panel, locate the PHP version selector and choose the desired supported PHP version from the dropdown. Click the Update button to save the change.

5. Trigger a deployment - The PHP version change will not take effect until a new deployment is performed. Go to the Release tab in the Altis Dashboard and initiate a new deployment (or redeploy the latest release). Once the deployment finishes successfully, the environment will be running the selected PHP version.

Post-upgrade recommendations:

• Verify the site loads correctly.
• Check application logs for PHP warnings or errors.
• Test critical functionality and background jobs.
• Monitor performance and error reporting for a short period after deployment.

Re-Enable Composer's Platform Check

If you previously disabled the platform check in Composer, you can now re-enable it once everything has been upgraded. Remove the "platform-check": false line if you added it.

Additionally, we recommend setting the PHP version explicitly, which will ensure the correct packages are installed for your PHP version.

The easiest way to add this is to run:

composer config platform.php 8.3

(Replace 8.3 with your desired new PHP version.)