PHP versions 8.0 and 8.1 are finally here for all shared and reseller hosting services!

To enable one of the new PHP versions for your website(s), use the cPanel -> MultiPHP Manager interface. The new versions may appear as ea-php80 and ea-php81 (for resold accounts) or alt-php80 and alt-php81 (for shared hosting accounts).

We hope you enjoy having access to the latest PHP versions here at GeekStorage. If you have any feedback for us, please let us know in the comments below.

cPanel Inc. has announced that, beginning in November 2019, all cPanel/WHM licenses are being converted to a new per-account licensing model. The change applies to all cPanel/WHM license types and is a forced change to all cPanel partners (including us). Accordingly, we must adjust our VPS & Dedicated cPanel/WHM licensing pricing and our Reseller Hosting packages to reflect the new cPanel/WHM licensing options and pricing. The bullet points below outline the important details for all cPanel/WHM licenses which will take effect on November 1, as well as required adjustments for all Reseller Hosting packages. Shared hosting services will retain current pricing with no changes.

Note: This announcement originally indicated these changes were coming in September. These changes will instead be implemented by November 1.

Reseller Hosting:

• All not currently available reseller packages without an account limit will have a limit of 25 accounts (higher tier packages will have higher account allotments, 25 will be the minimum for old packages). Resellers hosting a higher number of accounts will have the option to add additional accounts for $5/month per 25 accounts.
• All reseller packages will no longer include a full WHMCS discount. These licenses will need to be renewed/purchased at their new discounted rates beginning on November 1, 2019. This allows us to continue offering reseller hosting at the rates posted on our site and customers who are not using the license will not be affected by the cPanel/WHM licensing changes.

VPS Hosting:

• All VPS cPanel/WHM licenses will be switched over to support the new licensing model on November 1, 2019. VPS packages which previously included a free cPanel/WHM license will receive a credit of $10/month towards their preferred cPanel license. Current cPanel/WHM licenses will be converted to the base cPanel/WHM 5 account license for $15/month, where possible. Additional licensing options are available for 30 accounts ($20/month), 50 accounts ($28/month) 100 accounts ($35/month), and from there additional accounts are $5/month per 50 accounts.

Dedicated Servers:

• All dedicated server cPanel/WHM licenses will be switched over to support the new licensing model on November 1, 2019. Dedicated packages which previously included a free cPanel/WHM license will now receive the base dedicated cPanel/WHM license supporting 100 accounts. Current cPanel/WHM licenses will be converted to the new rate of $35/month for 100 accounts. Additional accounts can be added to the license for $5/month per 50 accounts.

cPanel Alternatives

We are happy to help with considerations for control panel alternatives if you wish to avoid the cPanel/WHM licensing changes, but we should advise such changes can take a long time to implement and will need to be scheduled accordingly. If you are considering such a change, you should contact us as soon as possible.

Additional Information

We will be sending an email to all affected customers with further details as the November 1 deadline approaches. If you have any questions please feel free to submit a support ticket or contact us at [email protected].

The much awaited PHP 7.0.0 release is now available for all GeekStorage shared and reseller hosting websites!

We've also compiled the most recent point updates to PHP 5.5 and PHP 5.6 for the latest fixes on all servers.

To enable PHP 7.0.0 is as easy as updating your .htaccess file with the following line:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php70 .php

We hope you enjoy having access to the latest and greatest PHP versions here at GeekStorage. If you have any feedback for our sysadmin team, let us know in the comments below.

Symfony is an open source PHP framework that can help you develop your new website quickly and easily. Security, configurability, and community lie at the foundation of Symfony and we highly recommend the framework to any PHP developer that wants to create a new website or remake an established website. Symfony, however, can be difficult to install on a shared hosting account. Our shared hosting service provides all the tools necessary to make installation of Symfony a breeze and this article will walk you through the entire process.

What you will need:

• A cPanel shared hosting account with SSH access and git installed. All of our super fast LiteSpeed-powered shared hosting services include SSH access.
• An SSH client and familiarity with entering commands. Check out our SSH tutorial if you are new to Linux or the console.
• Some familiarity with the git tool is recommended, though not required to follow along with this tutorial. We have a Git tutorial if you want to learn more.
• This article assumes all requirements are met by your current hosting environment.

Symfony is a PHP framework, so some experience with PHP or the desire to learn PHP is required to work with Symfony. Make sure to bookmark the excellent Symfony Documentation on the Symfony website. It may seem that getting up and running with Symfony will be a daunting task. We'll break it down into simple steps so you can start developing with Symfony right away.

Read more »

Our Shared & Reseller web developers will be happy to hear that PHP 5.6 is now available. To enable on individual files, use the ".php56" extension. Enabling for an entire folder is simple, just update your .htaccess file with the following:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php56 .php

• Use the version you prefer. All other PHP versions remain available, of course. Just replace "56" in the above examples with "55" for PHP 5.5, and "54" for PHP 5.4, and "53" for PHP 5.3. Legacy systems also have PHP 5.2 available.
• Upgrade soon. We recommend moving towards PHP 5.5 or higher for major performance improvements. PHP 5.3 is past end of life; applications relying on version 5.3 should be updated right away.
• Experiment with PHP. There are many new features in PHP 5.6. If you want to learn something new, now is a great time. SSH access is included with all of our shared hosting services, so you can install Composer and fiddle with a new app or site quickly.

We hope you enjoy developing with our hosting platform! If you need a PHP module or other software installed for your development environment, in most cases we can install it for you. Send us an e-mail to [email protected] and let us know what you need.