AlmaLinux 8.9 - Imagick PHP PECL module not recognised by WordPress

Support
1

Hi,

just migrated WHM/cPanel from a server running RHEL 7.9 to a fresh installation of AlmaLinux 8.9.0 and WordPress reports the following in its “Site Health Status”, despite the fact that PHP PECL module imagick (3.7.0) with PHP 8.2 is installed on the old server and WordPress there does not report this notification:

(

One or more recommended modules are missingPerformance

PHP modules perform most of the tasks on the server that make your site run. Any changes to these must be made by your server administrator.

The WordPress Hosting Team maintains a list of those modules, both recommended and required, in the team handbook(opens in a new tab).

  • Warning The optional module, imagick, is not installed, or has been disabled.
    )

OBSERVATIONS:

Old Server with RHEL 7.9
ImageMagick.x86_64 6.9.10.68-7.el7_9 rhel-7-server-rpms
ImageMagick-devel.x86_64 6.9.10.68-7.el7_9 rhel-7-server-optional-rpms

New Server with AlmaLinux 8.9.0
ImageMagick.x86_64 6.9.12.93-1.el8 epel
ImageMagick-devel.x86_64 6.9.12.93-1.el8 epel
ImageMagick-libs.x86_64 6.9.12.93-1.el8 epel

Installing PHP 8.1 and the same version of PHP PECL module Imagick, issue is resolved but as this version of PHP is already EOL, it is important to have this module working with PHP 8.2.

Resources: Server Environment – Make WordPress Hosting

Thank you,

Petros Louca
University of Cyprus

2

PHP 8.1 is not EOL
See PHP: Supported Versions
(25 Nov 2024 and perhaps 2025)

BTW

  • EL-8 have support for PHP-7.4 and 8.0
  • EL-9 have support for PHP-8.0 and 8.1 (and EPEL have imagick but only for 8.0)

Perhaps PHP 8.1 or 8.2 will be available in the future… (8.10 ? 9.4 ? nobody can say for now)

So don’t know which provider gives you PHP 8.2, but it should also gives you imagick extension.

AFAIK, imagick is not yet fully compatible with recent PHP versions
=> PHP 8.3 compatibility (and 8.x prototypes fixes) by remicollet · Pull Request #616 · Imagick/imagick · GitHub

3

Thank you for your prompt reply and the clarification, I should have written “…end of its Active Support” PHP | endoflife.date

4

Despite AlmaLinux now no longer aiming for bug-for-bug with RHEL,
RHEL content does still has an effect and Red Hat does backport to RHEL:

That is, package in RHEL can have different support life-cycle from same package in upstream.
The prime examples are kernel and Python:

  • RHEL 7 has supported kernel “3.10.0” despite upstream 3.10 having been dead for many years
  • Python 2.7 is dead, but both RHEL 7 and RHEL 8 do support it until next Summer (and for extra money even beyond?)

In other words, “support” for RHEL versions of PHP might be more relevant than upstream “support” – if one does use them, rather than something more directly from upstream. Naturally, whether that is “active” support, is an another question.

5

Thank you both for replying!

We remain with PHP 8.1 then, in order for the specific PHP PECL module “Imagick” to be properly recognized and utilized by WordPress installations on the new server.