Install PHP 5.x on FreeBSD 12.x with DirectAdmin

Should you need to install old and unsafe PHP 5.x on FreeBSD 12.x server with DirectAdmin here you can find a short guide on how to achieve it.

Warning! In this guide we will install OpenSSL 1.0.2 and PHP 5.x versions, which are considered to be outdated and unsafe. If you keep following the guide you should consider all possible risks. Please check official pages for possible bugs and vulnerabilities in the suggested software versions.

So what we have?

• FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p2
  
• OpenSSL 1.1.1d-freebsd  10 Sep 2019 (installed server-wide)
  
• CustomBuild script 2.0.0 (rev: 2442)
• DirectAdmin v.1.60.4

OpenSSL version

It is known fact that PHP 5.x versions have issues to compile against OpenSSL 1.1.1. So first we need to install an alternative OpenSSL version. In FreeBSD ports we can find openssl-unsafe, which offers OpenSSL 1.0.2. So we install it:

cd /usr/ports/security/openssl-unsafe
make && make install

The port does not replace a default OpenSSL version, it installs only the secondary instance into an alternative location /usr/local/openssl-unsafe/, see:

# /usr/local/openssl-unsafe/bin/openssl version
OpenSSL 1.0.2-chacha (1.0.2k-dev)

and

# /usr/bin/openssl version
OpenSSL 1.1.1d-freebsd  10 Sep 2019

Re-configure CustomBuild:

DirectAdmin and CustomBuild by default don't allow installation of PHP 5.x if OpenSSL 1.1.1 is installed on a server. So we will need to re-configure it. For this run as root the following commands:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
mkdir -p custom/php/
cp -p configure/php/configure.php5* custom/php/
mkdir -p custom/fpm/.custom_openssl
touch custom/fpm/.custom_openssl

Now we need to make PHP to build against older OpenSSL version. Run this command too:

perl -pi -e 's|with-openssl|with-openssl=/usr/local/openssl-unsafe|g' custom/php/configure.php5*

OK. So, lets re-compile PHP.

Install PHP

Here we need to run the following commands:

cd /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild
./build update
./build php
./build rewrite_confs

That's it.

Testing and controlling

If compilation and installation completed fine we need to check the things. So see phpinfo() results, or run the command for PHP 5.4:

/usr/local/php54/bin/php -i | grep ^openssl -i

expected results:

openssl
OpenSSL support => enabled
OpenSSL Library Version => OpenSSL 1.0.2-chacha (1.0.2k-dev)
OpenSSL Header Version => OpenSSL 1.0.2-chacha (1.0.2k-dev)
OpenSSL support => enabled

Good luck.