End of life for on-premise instances
At the end of March 2023, we cease on-premise hosting for Xentral instances. We encourage you to migrate your Xentral instance to our cloud - please do not hesitate to contact account@xentral.com for discussing and scheduling your cloud migration, or refer to our website or to our Community for more information.
Be aware that at the end of March 2023 we will stop any support services for on-premise hosted instances. There will be no further bug fixing or updates available. Likewise, we will not issue any further open source versions.
xentral is a server-side software, i.e. it primarily runs via a server and not via a client. The basic framework for basic functions for xentral is the PHP scripting language, while most apps with cronjobs run via the Command Line Input (CLI) language.
PHP and CLI have different versions and always new release cycles to fix bugs and the like, so you have to install a new version every now and then. Additionally Ioancube is used to encrypt the script files and the Ioncube Loader to call keys. You sometimes have to update to the Ioncube Loader, otherwise xentral may not open. After updating the PHP version it is recommended to restart the server.
You can check which versions of PHP and CLI are installed. You can do this in the Systemlog app. Navigate to Administration > Settings > System > Systemlog or use the Super Search.
You can find the PHP version number in the PHP Info tab.
The CLI-version number can be found in the PHP-Info (CLI) tab as the first entry.
Ideally, you should keep PHP and CLI on the same version. In addition to the version number, the system log also contains other information such as the directory of the configuration file (.ini). The same file is always read from the specified directory, even if you update the PHP or CLI version due to a new feature. If you want to use a different configuration file, you have to change it on the server side.
Under System Log > To update > System Logs you can see e.g., which file is currently being read. You can use this for live debugging.
When PHP is started, the configuration file (php.ini) is read in. You can choose from several options to read the configuration file.
-
Option 1: Reading in with environment variables. A path from which the configuration file can be read in could look like this:
PHPRC=/home/USER/etc/php72/php.ini /usr/local/bin/php -f /home/USER/www/ERP/cronjobs/starter2.php
-
Option 2: Reading in additional paths via directives.
-
Option 3: Working with an .htaccess file: Such files are primarily used in web server configuration. You can specify here which users are called in which directory by default. You can also block the reading of an old path.
-
Option 4: Another option is to first install a new version of PHP and then uninstall the old version.
Note
The PHP version is often read out via the System Health app. However, this is updated via the System Health process starter of the same name, which is why the latest version is not displayed here directly after an update, but only after the process starter has run once.
Information about the system requirements for the installation at web hosting providers can be found here.