PHP8 support

[sol2010]

Hi what's the ETA on PHP version 8 support for WHMCS ?

I saw the blog post but it does not give any ETA.

Our servers will soon be looking at dropping support for PHP 7.4 - given that it will soon become unsupported from DEC 2021  https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php

IONCUBE appears not to be supported in PHP 8  ?

 

[steven99]

Sometime after ioncube releases loaders for PHP 8 and when that happens is a question for them. 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

Bottom line, Steven is correct. There is not a chance on earth they want users to see any of their coding as it'd probably cause mass outrage - with how often stuff breaks I picture something awful - that's also a common consensus in naughty parts of the Internet! 

They won't move to encryption of just licensing due to this reason and there isn't a viable alternative that will allow whmcs to continue their "Absolution through obfuscation" business model 😉  

 

Furthermore, there's a good possibility they'll pick it up pretty quickly as they have a tenancy to rush untested software to market as opposed to testing it probably (source:look at every update lol) 

 

Your best bet is to monitor ioncubes progress which is just as ignorant as whmcs at times to their customers but they'll undoubtedly tell us when they've got a release candidate 

 

[lulzkiller]

On 9/25/2021 at 5:36 AM, sol2010 said:

Hi what's the ETA on PHP version 8 support for WHMCS ?

I saw the blog post but it does not give any ETA.

Our servers will soon be looking at dropping support for PHP 7.4 - given that it will soon become unsupported from DEC 2021  https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php

IONCUBE appears not to be supported in PHP 8  ?

 

I was looking for this as well, but must wait for ioncube. The problem with that is, ioncube dont give a shi* They are not responding to any php8 threads, nor are they giving any timeframes. So might be never 😕

ok they finally replied in their thread, basicly they are waiting for php8.1 before ioncube releases anything
https://community.ioncube.com/viewtopic.php?t=4592&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15&sid=03a8d53a49e7ea01777f9f4836cb3041

Edited September 27, 2021 by lulzkiller
add more info

[steven99]

Funny, and maybe "good" for WHMCS, is the ioncube wait would hit Blesta -- because of its license bits being encoded.    I don't think 7.0 was that bad or not as bad as 5.0 . 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

1 hour ago, steven99 said:

Funny, and maybe "good" for WHMCS, is the ioncube wait would hit Blesta -- because of its license bits being encoded.    I don't think 7.0 was that bad or not as bad as 5.0 . 

Finding an alternative for 2 files is much less of an undertaking though! Whmcs encrypted everything (imo to hide it from criticism) 

I think wise and host alongside whmcs could struggle with the fully encrypted model to change to something else! Although it may speed up the decision to go fully hosted like they're clearly planning! 

[sol2010]

7 minutes ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

Finding an alternative for 2 files is much less of an undertaking though! Whmcs encrypted everything (imo to hide it from criticism) 

I think wise and host alongside whmcs could struggle with the fully encrypted model to change to something else! Although it may speed up the decision to go fully hosted like they're clearly planning! 

Yes, I think it would be nice if they could unlock everything except the two license files, but I won't hold my breath on that one, otherwise I'll be as dead as Atari !

Meanwhile, if there is no announcement soon, we will have to start looking at alternatives... 

Does Blesta have project management yet?

 

 

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

No idea to be honest! It's not something I use here, so I never looked into it! At the moment I have one whmcs, one wise and one blesta install - whmcs is going eventually! We simply don't feel it offers enough value - the price would be fine if each update didn't compound serious problems and break stuff! 

 

On both other platforms I'm yet to have anything break during an upgrade..... even as a somewhat novice! The update to 8.2.1 was a disaster! Stupid things not mentioned in the changelog. Just wildly unprofessional! Regardless of cost we just can't afford to remain anymore 

[steven99]

2 minutes ago, sol2010 said:

Does Blesta have project management yet?

Not yet and don't see any third party options right off.    I am actually surprised either WHMCS or Blesta does not have addons for integrating in to SaaS project management systems. 

14 minutes ago, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

Finding an alternative for 2 files is much less of an undertaking though! Whmcs encrypted everything (imo to hide it from criticism)

Indeed but that isn't the issue, but rather that ioncube is one pretty much every server - at least cpanel or plesk ones.  For example, SourceGuardian has been around for a long time but I rarely have seen it used or installed.  Once you add in requirements like adding in a php extension it can slow adaption.   The good thing is they are working on PHP 8 at least from the little blurb at https://docs.blesta.com/display/support/5.2.0 .  

[WHMCS John]

Hi all,

We posted a blog providing an update on PHP 8 support in July: https://blog.whmcs.com/133698/update-on-php-8-support-in-whmcs

The TL;DR version is that WHMCS is PHP 8 ready, so we hope to move quickly once our dependencies are too.

[Evolve Web Hosting]

On 9/27/2021 at 7:05 AM, lulzkiller said:

I was looking for this as well, but must wait for ioncube. The problem with that is, ioncube dont give a shi* They are not responding to any php8 threads, nor are they giving any timeframes. So might be never 😕

ok they finally replied in their thread, basicly they are waiting for php8.1 before ioncube releases anything
https://community.ioncube.com/viewtopic.php?t=4592&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15&sid=03a8d53a49e7ea01777f9f4836cb3041

GA is Nov 25 for PHP 8.1 so it will probably be January 2022 before Ioncube and WHMCS are all ready to go.

[evotz]

Maybe WHMCS should consider switching to Sourceguardian instead of Ioncube?

This isn't the first time Ioncube has severely dragged their feet with PHP releases.  Sourceguardian doesn't appear to have these issues.

Or consider a free alternative, like phpBolt.

If Ioncube isn't going to do anything when a new version of PHP is released, then perhaps it's time to move on from Ioncube for all projects.

[Jafar Muhammed]

Here https://community.ioncube.com/viewtopic.php?t=4592 the Community Admin said:

Quote

For timeframes on PHP 8.1 support, we would currently not expect it to be within the next 2 months, within the next 6 months is possible, and we would expect it within the next 12 months. These estimates will of course change over time.

 

[jmginer]

Is there an alternative to ioncube?

[DennisHermannsen]

1 minute ago, jmginer said:

Is there an alternative to ioncube?

A few. You just can't use them for WHMCS.
WHMCS will only run on IonCube (unless they start encoding using a different library).

As support for PHP 7.4 ends on 28 Nov 2022, I'm sure WHMCS is already looking for a way to work around IonCube. Despite a lot of flaws, I doubt they're going to force their clients to use outdated PHP versions.

[evotz]

MAYBE Ioncube eventually releases PHP 8.0 support.  But this game has gone on too long.  SourceGuardian has had PHP 8.0 support since, what? two weeks after PHP 8.0 was released?

It's becoming apparent that Ioncube either doesn't care or isn't willing to invest in product development to fix this issue in a timely manner.  They closed out their forums when the negativity was getting to be too much.

If I'm a developer that encodes with Ioncube I'd have to take a long, long, long hard look to see if Ioncube is still the product I want to use.

To be completely clear - the lack of PHP 8 support in WHMCS is not the WHMCS developer's fault.  Unless you consider their dependence on Ioncube to be a fault.  The fault lies entirely with Ioncube failing to release encoders for PHP 8 in a timely manner.

[wsa]

On 9/24/2021 at 11:36 PM, sol2010 said:

IONCUBE appears not to be supported in PHP 8  ?

This is the email I get from IonCube

Hi,

Thanks for contacting us and we're looking at approximately the end of June for PHP 8.1 support though no release date has been confirmed yet.

Kind Regards,
Ben
--
ionCube Support

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

Would be great if June does materialise! Something needs to progress one way or another! 

[WHMCS John]

Hi all,

We continue to monitor the status of our dependencies. At present we remain confident that Ioncube will deliver a solution for PHP 8 in the near future, and we are ready for when this happens.

Switching to an alternative of ionCube would be burdensome for our users - meeting the new system requirement and likely requiring a non-standard update process -  which is something we're keen to avoid if at-all possible.

 

3 hours ago, wsa said:

Hi,

Thanks for contacting us and we're looking at approximately the end of June for PHP 8.1 support though no release date has been confirmed yet.

Kind Regards,
Ben
--
ionCube Support

This anticipated release date is considerably before the end of security updates for PHP 7.4 (Nov 2022).

[evotz]

2 hours ago, WHMCS John said:

Switching to an alternative of ionCube would be burdensome for our users - meeting the new system requirement and likely requiring a non-standard update process -  which is something we're keen to avoid if at-all possible.

How so?

Why not just release a WHMCS 9.0 encoded with Sourceguardian.  How would the update process be any different than what it is now?

Or are you referring to servers having to have the Sourceguardian PHP extension installed?  If so, that's trivial as well.

Ioncube has dragged their feet way too many times with new PHP releases for me to have any confidence in them.

You can bet you'll run into the same exact thing when PHP 9.0 is released.

[Bigol'tastynuggets]

41 minutes ago, evotz said:

How so?

Why not just release a WHMCS 9.0 encoded with Sourceguardian.  How would the update process be any different than what it is now?

Or are you referring to servers having to have the Sourceguardian PHP extension installed?  If so, that's trivial as well.

Ioncube has dragged their feet way too many times with new PHP releases for me to have any confidence in them.

You can bet you'll run into the same exact thing when PHP 9.0 is released.

Exactly this! Convenience should be secondary to security! Dual releasing as competitors are doing should be a bare minimum really! 

I'd rather install SG to servers to allow for my clients to have peace of mind they're not edging closer to being EOL'd its not a complicated process nor should it be ignored as a possibility to save answering tickets - the release date has been moved repeatedly already 

[Damo]

@Bigol'tastynuggets I didn't offer to hug you. I was suggesting that maybe you needed a hug.  

As for PHP I am comfortable that WHMCS using ioncube will be ready for 7.x to be at EOL. A current system requirement of WHMCS is ioncube so as we choose to use WHMCS we comply with the requirements. 

John,s post above make me even more comfortable. 

[WHMCS John]

On 5/13/2022 at 7:19 PM, evotz said:

Why not just release a WHMCS 9.0 encoded with Sourceguardian.  How would the update process be any different than what it is now?

Or are you referring to servers having to have the Sourceguardian PHP extension installed?  If so, that's trivial as well.

The update process would likely be different; for example a two-step update process could be needed so the auto-updater can evaluate and enforce a whole new system requirement.

Making server configuration changes are non-trivial for a proportion of users, so minimising that is a significant customer experience consideration for me.

 

On 5/13/2022 at 8:05 PM, Bigol'tastynuggets said:

Exactly this! Convenience should be secondary to security! Dual releasing as competitors are doing should be a bare minimum really! 

The difference between the Full Version Releases and Incremental Patch Sets already causes confusion for a proportion of users, so adding additional choices on top of that would not be my preference.

 

[sol2010]

So what's the latest?

It's pretty embarressing to have to come to a public community to find out when the software you sue will be compatibile with the current server software.

Today I was planning to remove all PHP versions less than 8.0 for security.

However, it seems if I do that - WHMCS will no longer work - because there is not any PHP ioncube loader available for PHP 8.0 

This seems ridiculous.  WHMCS needs to either drop Ioncube, find an alternative, or write the upgrade themselves.

How long must we wait before we can secure our installations with up to date software?

 

Edited June 10, 2022 by sol2010

[lulzkiller]

Well, TBH ioncube has been broken for some time now, can easily be decrypted via various services really cheap and sometimes for free. So its basicly useless. Really juts forget to encrypt the source because its basically useless... Find some other way to maintain copyright. Many other providers earn shitloads of money with open source, how come whmcs cannot do that...