As you may have noticed on the front page of our website, we’ve added a new section about the “Up Next” initiative, explaining upcoming changes to cPanel & WHM. A significant change coming in early 2020 is the EasyApache 3 to EasyApache 4 autoconversion. When we last made a change in the Up Next initiative, we upgraded users on out of date and unsupported cPanel & WHM version to Version 78. This upgrade did come with a caveat; those servers running EasyApache 3 faced an upgrade blocker that prevented the change to 78 and instead upgraded to Version 76. The next step in Up Next is to resolve those blockers, which prevent a smooth transition to the LTS tier, Version 78.
What are the benefits of upgrading to EasyApache 4?
If you weren’t already aware, EasyApache 3 reached End of Life in December of 2018 and no longer receiving much-needed security updates. Additionally, EasyApache 4 offers quality of life improvements, making it a far better choice than using EasyApache 3. Between the faster build times, automatic updates, and multiple PHP version support, upgrading to EasyApache 4 is the smart choice. Did you know that our EasyApache 4 RPMs are open source? They sure are! If you’re an advanced user that wants to customize those RPMs for your use, we provide them to you!
Are there any issues I can run into upgrading to EasyApache 4?
There are some risks in upgrading your EasyApache version; however, we want to help you mitigate those potential pitfalls.
- Servers that are using custom optmods not provided by cPanel will no longer be able to do so, as EasyApache 4 does not support them.
- Those custom optmods won’t be migrated and need manual intervention to fix.
- If you have custom optmods in EasyApache 3, you can generate custom EasyApache 4 RPMs following this guide.
- If your server is blocked from upgrading for other reasons (i.e., lack of available disk space) will also not receive the upgrade and continue to remain blocked.
- Tomcat 7 users will be migrated as-is, but are strongly encouraged to transition to our new system based on Tomcat 8.5.
What do I need to do?
The upgrade from EasyApache 3 to EasyApache 4 is automatic and takes place in early 2020. However, to ensure your systems are prepared and set up to move seamlessly, we highly encourage users to migrate yourselves from EasyApache 3 to EasyApache 4. The process is relatively painless and straightforward, and by taking advantage of this ahead of time, allows time to revert to EasyApache 3 to resolve any issues that pop up before the automatic upgrade. As always, the cPanel Team is available to assist you in migrating your servers from EasyApache 3 to EasyApache 4.
What else should I know?
If you have any questions or want to discuss this upgrade process further, please reach out to us directly via our official Slack and Discord channels, our official subreddit, or the cPanel Forums. Make sure you keep tabs on the ongoing Up Next process!