How can I access the package repositories?
The package repositories are private. Only customers of the service have access to them. See the documentation for details on how you can access them.
On how many servers can I use the package repositories?
This depends on the offer that you picked. Up to 30 for the “Basic” offer, up to 200 for the “Pro” offer and up to 1000 for the “Business” offer.
If you are exceeding your limit, please reach out to us at sales@freexian.com so that we can adjust your contract.
There are no invasive tools to install that blocks everything once you exceed your quota, however the contract you signed is only valid if you respect the usage limits and you have no contractual guarantees if you are cheating on the number of systems where PHP LTS packages are installed.
We trust you to do the right thing and re-assess your global usage at least once a year upon renewal.
Why do I get HTTP 503 errors when I run apt update?
The most likely reason is that you are trying to access an APT repository
that you have not subscribed to. For instance, to access the bookworm
repository, you need to have subscribed to at least one Debian 12
‘bookworm’ based platform.
Why do I get HTTP 503 errors when I try to install a package?
The package repositories that you are using have all the available PHP
versions, but we are restricting the set of packages that you have access
to at the HTTP level. Any package containing phpX.Y in its name will
only be accessible if you have included the corresponding platform as part
of your subscription.
If you believe to have unwarranted HTTP 503 errors, then don’t hesitate to open a support ticket.
What if I want to share the packages with my customers, but I can’t afford the “Pro” offer?
In that case, you should tell your customers to subscribe to the service by themselves. If you want to spare them this administrative work, you can take multiple “Basic” subscriptions in the name of your customers.
What is the difference between Freexian and Debian packages?
The main difference is the supported PHP versions. On Debian, there’s only a single supported PHP version, but on Freexian, multiple co-installable PHP versions are provided from the Freexian repository.
The other difference is in the way how the PECL extensions are packaged. There’s a single package for Debian and multiple versioned packages in the Freexian PHP repository.
What is the default PHP version on Freexian?
The default PHP version that gets installed when you type f.e. apt install php-fpm follows the latest upstream PHP version with some delay.
The default PHP version is usually switched to the new stable PHP version
after few months of grace period when all extensions are built, and people
report success running the latest PHP version.
What is the difference between Freexian and DEB.SURY.ORG?
There are two differences. The main difference is that the Freexian PHP repositories are guaranteed and officially supported, and the DEB.SURY.ORG repositories are provided on a best effort basis.
Then the technical difference is in the Debian releases supported. The Freexian PHP repositories offer packages for all Debian releases, including those who are supported through LTS and Extended LTS, and for all Ubuntu LTS releases, including those who are in Extended Service Maintenance via Ubuntu Pro. With Freexian, you are getting a broader selection of supported Debian releases.
If you are already familiar with DEB.SURY.ORG packages, you should have no trouble using Freexian PHP packages.
What security support is provided?
Upstream security and stability fixes, as applied to PHP stable releases, are backported to the Freexian LTS supported PHP releases. This is essentially the same support that upstream PHP provides for their upstream-supported releases, but continued long after upstream PHP stops supporting them.
We review and triage security issues regularly, and apply patches according to impact and compatibility with the older PHP releases. Where an issue is not fixable, mitigations may be recommended.
Many security updates come with regression tests to ensure that they are fixed. These are usually backported with the patch, ensuring its correctness and avoiding future regression.
This is the same level of security support as is provided for PHP packages within regular Debian stable releases, by the same team.
We would like to thank Remi Collet for the php-src-security repository that is used as a base for providing the security support for end-of-life PHP versions in Debian and Ubuntu.
What are you doing to avoid regressions from security updates?
We run PHP’s full regression test suite before updating PHP in the repositories, to reduce the risk of regressions.
Where can I see a list of security issues?
Applied fixes are documented in the Debian changelog of the package. You
can see it in e.g. /usr/share/doc/php-7.4/changelog.Debian.gz on a system
where the package is installed.
The CVEs and their triaging decisions are not published in a structured form, at this time.
How long will you support PHP releases after their end-of-life?
See our End-of-Life page.
How long will your support Debian 9?
We will provide packages for Debian 9 for as long as Debian 9 is supported through Freexian’s Extended Long Term Support, so until June 2027.
How to switch from Debian PHP packages to Freexian PHP packages?
Using the Freexian PHP packages should be as simple as adding the private
APT repository and running apt update. Then to install, for example, PHP
7.4, you would run apt install php7.4 or apt install phpX.Y-fpm. The
only thing you must be aware of is the difference between the default
versions. If you already have the php-fpm package installed, the apt dist-upgrade command will co-install the default PHP version and upgrade
the currently installed version.
How to switch from DEB.SURY.ORG packages to Freexian PHP packages?
Switching the source of the PHP packages from DEB.SURY.ORG to Freexian is
very simple. Just add the Freexian private repositories to the APT source
lists and remove the DEB.SURY.ORG repository. The next apt update && apt upgrade will update the packages to the Freexian PHP packages.
What PECL extensions are provided?
Check out the list of supported extensions.
We generally don’t provide non-opensource PECL extensions.
As a customer, you have an option to request the addition of PECL extensions to the private repository.
How are the PECL extensions packaged?
For every PHP release (5.6, 7.x and 8.x), there’s a matching
phpX.Y-<ext> package. In addition to that, for compatibility reasons,
there’s a single php-<ext> package that depends on all individual PECL
packages.
Which architectures are supported?
In general, we support amd64, armhf and arm64. But there are a few exceptions: Ubuntu 16.04 ‘xenial’ does not support armhf and arm64, Debian 9 ‘stretch’ does not support arm64.
Support for the i386 architecture is deprecated: packages are available for all Debian releases but not for Ubuntu 20.04 and newer releases, and it will likely be dropped for Debian releases in the near future too.
Please contact sales@freexian.com if you want to check whether a specific architecture is supported for the releases that are of interest to you, or if you need support for another architecture.
I have more questions. Where do I send them?
Please get in touch with us at sales@freexian.com. If you are already a customer, you should have received instructions to be able to send us support requests.