Upgrade to PHP 8.1

❗ ❗ ❗ PHP 8.1 is no longer the recommended version for Nextcloud. ❗ ❗ ❗

We recommend upgrading to PHP 8.3 instead if you're on NC 28 or newer. For Nextcloud 26 or 27, follow the PHP 8.2 guide first.

Before you start

• This tutorial was developed for and tested with NextCloudPi 1.43.3 on a RaspberryPI.
• NextCloudPi may behave differently on other systems.
• Nextcloud 24 is required before upgrading to PHP 8.1.
• This does not work for NextCloudPi Docker. You can't upgrade PHP in a Docker image.
• Make sure to make a backup of your entire NextCloudPi Instance (config, data, etc.) before you do this.

Enable SSH

If you already have SSH enabled, you can skip this.

• Open the NextCloudPi management ui by opening the NextCloudPi app.
• Find the "SSH" section under "Networking" in the menu on the left
• Make sure it's active and you know the password
• Login to your NextCloudPi with SSH (e.g. ssh pi@<server> on linux)

Log in as Root

After logging in, run sudo su -s /bin/bash to start a session as root.

Add PHP Package Archive

You can skip this step if you already followed the Upgrade to PHP 7.4 or Upgrade to PHP 8.0 guide. Execute the following commands on your NextCloudPi to add the repository PHP 8.1 from deb.sury.org:

# Add the PHP PPA from deb.sury.org
apt-get -y install apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates curl
curl -sSL -o /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
sh -c 'echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list'
apt-get update

Install PHP 8.1

Execute the following command on your NextCloudPi to install PHP 8.1:

# Install PHP 8.1
apt-get -y install php8.1-fpm php8.1-mysql php8.1-xml php8.1-zip php8.1-mbstring php8.1-gd php8.1-curl php8.1-redis php8.1-intl php8.1-bcmath php8.1-gmp php8.1-imagick imagemagick

Update the PHP 8.1 configuration

Execute the following command on your NextCloudPi to link the NextCloudPi configuration for PHP from PHP 7.3 to 8.1 and enable it:

# Enable the image magick module
phpenmod imagick

# Symlink NCP PHP configuration
ln -s /etc/php/7.3/fpm/conf.d/90-ncp.ini /etc/php/8.1/fpm/conf.d/90-ncp.ini

# Restart PHP
systemctl restart php8.1-fpm

Set up Apache for PHP 8.1

Execute the following commands on your NextCloudPi to update the Apache configuration:

# Configure apache for php8.1
a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif
a2enconf php8.1-fpm

# Disable PHP 7.3 for apache if enabled
a2disconf php7.3-fpm
# Disable PHP 7.4 for apache if enabled.
# If you don't have PHP 7.4 installed, this will report an error which you can ignore
a2disconf php7.4-fpm

# Restart PHP
systemctl reload apache2

Check for Nextcloud and App updates

It can take some time until updates for apps are shown in the appstore.

cd /var/www/nextcloud

# Install updates of the passwords app if available
sudo -u www-data php ./occ app:update passwords

Check the PHP default version

By default, your NextCloudPi should now be using PHP 8.1. You can check this by running php -v. The output should look like this:

root@nextcloudpi:/home/pi# php -v
PHP 8.1.0 (cli) (built: Mar  5 2021 08:38:30) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.0.3, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.1.3, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

If it doesn't, you should use update-alternatives --config php and set PHP 8.1 as default:

root@nextcloudpi:/home/pi# update-alternatives --config php
There are 3 choices for the alternative php (providing /usr/bin/php).

  Selection    Path             Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/bin/php8.1   81        auto mode
  1            /usr/bin/php8.0   80        manual mode
  2            /usr/bin/php8.1   81        manual mode

Press <enter> to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number:0

Notes

• It can take a day before app updates show up in the apps store