Introduction to EasyApache 4


Last modified: May 31, 2023

Overview

This document provides an overview of the improvements and benefits that EasyApache 4 provides for site owners, server owners, server administrators, and application developers.

Requirements

Important:

We strongly recommend that you update your server’s cPanel & WHM version before you run EasyApache 4.

We only support EasyApache 4 on systems that run cPanel & WHM version 11.52 or higher.

You can use EasyApache 4 on the operating systems that cPanel & WHM supports.

For more information, read our Product Versions and the Release Process documentation.

AlmaLinux OS

EasyApache 4 supports the AlmaLinux operating systems. The following packages are not provided by EasyApache 4. However, if a system library for these packages exist, EasyApache 4 will use the system-provided one.

  • OpenSSL
  • OpenSSL 1.1
  • Memcache
  • Memcached
  • libcurl
  • IonCube
  • PEAR
  • Phalcon
  • PHP versions prior to version 7.2
  • Snuffleupagus
  • suhosin
  • Tomcat
  • Ruby 2.4
  • SourceGuardian Loader
  • Zend Guard Loaderâ„¢

What does EasyApache 4 offer?

EasyApache 4 installs, configures, updates, and validates your web server, PHP, and other components of your web server.

  • cPanel & WHM does not require that you use EasyApache 4, but it provides an easy and convenient method to modify your web server. Your cPanel & WHM license includes the EasyApache 4 software.
  • cPanel & WHM installs EasyApache 4 by default on new installations of systems that run cPanel & WHM version 58 or higher.

Binary packages

Binary packages reduce the time that it takes for updates and installs on the system. They also allow developers to quickly spin up different configurations. This provides cost savings for site owners and server owners.

Rather than compile the binaries from source, we build our packages with binaries that you can install with your package manager. This allows for quicker automatic updates of packages. We fork any custom packages from the upstream files to ensure that they contain the latest version. This also allows Apache and PHP to automatically update.

MultiPHP support

EasyApache 4 supports multiple versions of PHP. The MultiPHP system allows you to assign different PHP versions to each of your domains. Combined with automatic upgrades, this ensures that your PHP applications use the most up-to-date PHP versions.

As of cPanel & WHM version 66, the EasyApache 4 MultiPHP system recognizes PHP packages with prefixes other than ea-. This allows you to use vendor-provided packages. For more information, read our PHP documentation.

Software collections

EasyApache 4 uses the Software Collections Library (SCL) for PHP packages. SCLs enable the installation of multiple, concurrent version of PHP on the file system.

An SCL supplies an alternate path inside the /opt file and contains the full file system that various software requires. When you enable an SCL, it adds the path within that environment to the system. Commands that do not specify a path or scripts that use the /usr/bin/env file to determine their path can use this path to find the appropriate software version.

For more information about SCLs in EasyApache 4, read our The scl Utility and The EasyApache 4 Git Repository and Build Updates documentation.

Path reorganization

The system originally stored Apache files in the /usr/local/apache directory. This directory no longer exists except for a few symlinks.

EasyApache 4’s path reorganization includes the following benefits:

  • The additional paths allow EasyApache 4 to function quickly and efficiently.
  • The additional paths allow multiple directories to store data and symlink between files.
  • The additional paths allow more effective storage of data, especially backups and recovery files.

For more information, read our Apache documentation.

Additional Documentation