How would you recommend putting php 5.3 + php 7.1 on Debian 11?

Question

linux

Hello.

I have a small vps on which a couple of services are running.

Apache + php 7.1 as a module.

Recently I also transferred a site from shared hosting to it. Everything would be fine, but the site on OpenCart uses ioncube modules that work maximum on PHP 5.3, and my server is up with PHP 7.1. Because of this, the site from the client side seems to be fully working, but in the site admin panel, some modules take the site to a 500 error due to ioncube.

I re-read several options, such as:
1) Installing php5-fpm and php7-fpm, and setting vhosts.conf to different handlers for different folders via unix-socket.

2) Use NGinx + php-fpm. I am not familiar with NGinx, I know that I will have to remake all .htaccess files for NGinx.

3) Somehow use Docker. I am not familiar with docker at all, and I do not quite understand how, depending on the typed domain name, the required docker container will be selected. Apparently something like NGinx as a proxy, and already NGinx sends the right request to the right container.

What method would you advise me in this case?

Given that:
- I'm not familiar with Docker. Does it make sense to use it in this situation, despite the fact that the server is dead ~ 1GHz + 1024RAM + 10Gb HDD?

Answer 1

The correct approach is to get rid of modules that require an outdated and unsupported version of php.
Its use endangers the entire server.
If this is not possible, then you need maximum isolation of this environment from everything else - here docker is right in your hands, it can also be used on your hardware.
You can proxy your specific domain to docker with your own nginx (nginx reverse proxy)