ea-ioncube15

This repository builds the ea-ioncube15 package for cPanel & WHM, which provides ionCube Loader support for PHP.

Overview

ionCube provides PHP loaders that enable execution of encoded PHP files. This package installs the appropriate ionCube loaders for all supported PHP versions in the EasyApache 4 system.

Special Build Process: PHP 8.5 Support

Why get_for_all_php.pl Exists

As of early 2026, ionCube's stable release (15.0.x) includes loaders for PHP 5.6 through 8.4, but does not yet include PHP 8.5 support.

However, ionCube's beta release (15.5.x) includes only PHP 8.5 loaders - it does not contain loaders for earlier PHP versions.

This is why we cannot simply use the beta release alone. To support all PHP versions (including 8.5), we needed a way to:

1. Use the stable release for all standard PHP versions (5.6-8.4)
2. Add PHP 8.5 loaders from the beta release
3. Combine them into a single tarball for packaging

What get_for_all_php.pl Does

This script creates a hybrid tarball by:

1. Downloading the stable release (15.0.x) - contains loaders for PHP 5.6-8.4
2. Downloading the beta release (15.5.x) - contains only PHP 8.5 loaders
3. Extracting both tarballs to temporary directories
4. Copying all files from the stable release to a merge directory
5. Copying only the .so loader files from the beta release (adds PHP 8.5 loaders)
6. Creating a combined tarball with all loaders
7. Placing the combined tarball in SOURCES/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz

The result is a tarball that contains:

• Stable loaders for PHP 5.6-8.4 (from stable release)
• Beta loader for PHP 8.5 only (from beta release)

Implementation Details

To accomplish this, find-latest-version was made more complex so that get_for_all_php.pl can load it as a modulino. This allows the script to:

• Reuse the version-finding logic from find-latest-version
• Find both the stable and beta versions of the loaders
• Perform the merging of the tarballs programmatically

This modulino approach avoids code duplication and keeps the version-finding logic centralized in one place.

When to Run This Script

You MUST run this script each time you update the package until ionCube's stable release includes PHP 8.5 support.

Once PHP 8.5 support is available in the stable release, we can:

1. Remove get_for_all_php.pl
2. Return to using the standard find-latest-version script
3. Update the spec file to fetch directly from stable releases

Usage

Run from the repository root:

./get_for_all_php.pl

Options:

• --nocleanup - Keep the temporary assembly directory after completion (useful for debugging)

Requirements

• Perl with the following modules:
  • HTTP::Tiny
  • File::Temp
  • File::Path
  • File::Copy
  • File::Find
  • Cwd
  • Getopt::Long
• Internet connectivity to download from ionCube's servers
• The find-latest-version script in the same directory

What Happens Next

After running get_for_all_php.pl:

1. The combined tarball is placed in SOURCES/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz
2. Build the RPM normally using make or your standard build process
3. The spec file will use this tarball as its source

Standard Build Process

Once get_for_all_php.pl has been run:

et obs --watch

This will build the RPM packages using the combined tarball.

Future Cleanup

Monitor ionCube releases at https://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php

When the stable release includes PHP 8.5:

1. Delete get_for_all_php.pl
2. Update build documentation
3. Verify the spec file works with standard stable releases

License

Copyright 2026 WebPros International, LLC. All rights reserved.