PHP 7.4 backport packages for older Ubuntu / Debian distros

Still running PHP 7.4 on an old Ubuntu or Debian server? These drop-in .deb packages patch two critical remote code execution bugs, CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, on Ubuntu and Debian releases outside standard support.

PHP 7.4 is end-of-life; these OS releases are outside standard support. Use this to buy time for an upgrade, not as ongoing security support.

You need Bash, curl, xz-utils and working APT sources for your release. Back up your PHP configuration first, then run:

target=$(. /etc/os-release; echo "$ID$VERSION_ID") cd "$(mktemp -d)" curl -fL "https://github.com/Niek/php7/releases/latest/download/php7.4-$target-amd64.tar.xz" -o php7.4.tar.xz tar -xJf php7.4.tar.xz sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS sudo apt install --only-upgrade ./*.deb

This detects your release (for example ubuntu18.04 or debian10), checks the package checksums, and upgrades only the PHP 7.4 packages you already have installed, including extensions, the Apache module and FPM. APT may install required dependencies. Review APT's proposed changes before accepting.

When it finishes, restart PHP-FPM, Apache or any other long-running PHP process.

Fixed: CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619, using the official upstream backports included in Sury's PHP 7.4.33 revision 31.

Disabled: session upload-progress tracking, as part of the fix. Regular file uploads still work.

On releases with older libraries: PCRE2 is bundled instead of using the system copy, and Argon2 password hashing may be unavailable.

Not included: third-party extensions, such as those from PECL.

How it's built

GitHub Actions downloads the pinned Sury PHP 7.4.33 source, verifies it against sources.sha256, then builds it in Docker for each release using that release's own libraries. Sury's packaging (extensions, FPM config and services) is kept as-is. build.sh only adjusts what older toolchains need. The PHP test suite is not run.

Every push and pull request builds all releases. To publish, set REVISION in .github/workflows/build.yml and push the matching tag, for example v7.4.33-1. The packages, build logs, checksums and source are attached to the GitHub release once all builds succeed.