phpldapadmin fails to enable php7.0 module

[Maciej Puzio]

After phpldapadmin package dependencies have been switched to php7.0 (LP: #1564121), a routine package update (apt-get upgrade; apt-get autoremove) causes phpldapadmin's web interface to stop working and display a page indicating that php is not enabled.

Workaround: a2enmod php7.0

$ apt-cache policy phpldapadmin
phpldapadmin:
  Installed: 1.2.2-5.2ubuntu1

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu Xenial Xerus (development branch)
Release: 16.04

$ uname -a
Linux **** 4.4.0-16-generic #32-Ubuntu SMP Thu Mar 24 22:38:01 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Nish Aravamudan (nacc)]

Thank you very much for this bug report.

Did you happen to see this line when you upgraded phpldapadmin?

ERROR: php5 module already enabled, not enabling PHP 7.0

We will be removing php5 support altogether before release, so I do not think that will happen in 16.04 final, but will confirm once php5 has been removed.

[Maciej Puzio (maciej-puzio)]

Thank you for a quick response. Yes, I can find "ERROR: php5 module already enabled, not enabling PHP 7.0" in /var/log/apt/term.log. Not sure if this is relevant, but before I ran "a2enmod php7.0", directory /etc/apache2/mods-enabled contained a link php7.0.load, but did not contain php7.0.conf.

On my machines php5 was installed as a dependency of phpldapadmin. The issue came to light as a result of a mundane update:

# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libapache2-mod-php5 php5-cli php5-common php5-json php5-ldap
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libapache2-mod-php libapache2-mod-php7.0 liblua5.2-0 lua-lpeg php-common php-ldap php7.0-cli php7.0-common
  php7.0-json php7.0-ldap php7.0-opcache php7.0-readline
The following packages will be upgraded:
  binutils bsdutils dbus ethtool gcc-5-base geoip-database libblkid1 libdbus-1-3 libdevmapper1.02.1 libfdisk1
  libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libmount1 libpython2.7-minimal libpython2.7-stdlib libpython3.5-minimal
  libpython3.5-stdlib libsmartcols1 libstdc++6 libsystemd0 libudev1 libuuid1 mount nmap phpldapadmin python2.7
  python2.7-minimal python3.5 python3.5-minimal sudo systemd systemd-sysv udev util-linux uuid-runtime
35 upgraded, 12 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

[Nish Aravamudan (nacc)]

On 05.04.2016 [22:34:01 -0000], Maciej Puzio wrote:
> Thank you for a quick response. Yes, I can find "ERROR: php5 module
> already enabled, not enabling PHP 7.0" in /var/log/apt/term.log. Not
> sure if this is relevant, but before I ran "a2enmod php7.0", directory
> /etc/apache2/mods-enabled contained a link php7.0.load, but did not
> contain php7.0.conf.

I believe that is all tied together. php7.0 and php5 conflict with one
another in apache's configuration. So probably the php7.0 configuration
stopped at that point. Not 100%, though, and I will verify that things
aren't broken once the archive has been cleaned up.

> On my machines php5 was installed as a dependency of phpldapadmin. The
> issue came to light as a result of a mundane update:

Right, but you're running a not-yet-released Ubuntu :) So you are just
getting caught up in the middle of this massive migration from php5 ->
php7.0. End-users that release to 16.04 final won't see php5 at all (it
will not be available), so phpldapadmin will pull in libapache2-mod-php
which should properly configure the php7.0 version. This happens, e.g.,
in a fresh xenial install (one that did not previously have php5
installed).

[Maciej Puzio (maciej-puzio)]

> I believe that is all tied together. php7.0 and php5 conflict with one another in apache's configuration.

I see that the root of the problem was that apt did not remove php5 while installing php7.0.

> Right, but you're running a not-yet-released Ubuntu :)

Yes, of course. I've been running it since beta1 on several machines, and found it to be much more reliable than 14.04 LTS (as it is now, two years old). Since we are only a couple of weeks away from the release, I much prefer to deal with an occasional configuration glitch than to again lock horns with Upstart. Anyway, the issue was not much of a problem for me; I submitted this bug report mainly for other users who might be looking for a workaround.

Thanks a lot!

[Nish Aravamudan (nacc)]

On 05.04.2016 [23:31:47 -0000], Maciej Puzio wrote:
> > I believe that is all tied together. php7.0 and php5 conflict with one
> > another in apache's configuration.
>
> I see that the root of the problem was that apt did not remove php5
> while installing php7.0.

Right, php7.0 and php5 themselves do not conflict (because the version
we pulled from Debian allows for coinstallability), but in apache they
do ... it's weird and kind of annoying, especially in this interim
period.

> > Right, but you're running a not-yet-released Ubuntu :)
>
> Yes, of course. I've been running it since beta1 on several machines,
> and found it to be much more reliable than 14.04 LTS (as it is now, two
> years old). Since we are only a couple of weeks away from the release, I
> much prefer to deal with an occasional configuration glitch than to
> again lock horns with Upstart. Anyway, the issue was not much of a
> problem for me; I submitted this bug report mainly for other users who
> might be looking for a workaround.

Thanks for that, for sure! I just finished clearing up the last few php5
deps today, so we should see php5 removed soon!