PHP is a programming language and forms the basis of many modern content management systems like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal.
This article describes how to change a cPanel account's PHP version, add or remove PHP modules, change PHP options and how to enable functions. All actions are completed within cPanel for the domain you wish to change.
PHP settings are accessed via cPanel > Software > Select PHP Version
When you click Select PHP Version you will be presented with the PHP Selector page on the PHP Extensions tab. The current PHP version is shown at the top and indicated with (current).
After changing the PHP version please ensure all required PHP Extensions are enabled and that your PHP Options settings are correct
What is a PHP extension?
A PHP extension (sometimes also called PHP Module), as its name suggests, extends the PHP language with more functions. For example, the Imagick extension provides a range of PHP functions relating to image manipulation. If you attempt to use any of these functions without activating this extension then your pages will return an internal server error.
Enabling PHP functions
By default the following PHP functions are disabled. They can be found in the disabled_functions option.
system
system_exec
symlink
shell
shell_exec
exec
passthru
escapeshellarg
escapeshellcmd
proc_close
proc_open
ini_alter
dl
show_source
proc_get_status
proc_nice
proc_terminate
highlight_file
define_syslog_variables
posix_uname
posix_getpwuid
apache_child_terminate
posix_kill
posix_mkfifo
posix_setpgid
posix_setsid
posix_setuid
ini_restore
inject_code
define_syslog_variables
apache_setenv
eval
phpAds_XmlRpc
phpAds_remoteInfo
phpAds_xmlrpcEncode
phpAds_xmlrpcDecode
xmlrpc_entity_decode
To enable a function you should remove it from this comma-separated list.
Be careful to ensure you don't leave any spaces and that there are single commas between each remaining function. Clicking outside the field or navigating away will save any changes.
IMPORTANT SECURITY NOTE:
To avoid compromising security, disable_functions should only be changed with caution and only if you are sure of what you are doing.
