Step-by-Step Guide to Compile and Install PHP 8.0 Alpha on CentOS with JIT Evaluation

This guide walks through installing PHP 8.0 Alpha 1 on a CentOS 7.4 system, starting with the required environment (CentOS 7, GCC 4.8.5) and the PHP source package.

1. Download source

wget https://downloads.php.net/~pollita/php-8.0.0alpha1.tar.gz

2. Extract archive tar -zxvf php-8.0.0alpha1.tar.gz 3. Create installation directory mkdir -p /usr/local/php80 4. Configure build options (a minimal set; full options are documented at the PHP manual).

cd php-8.0.0alpha1
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/php80/ --enable-debug --enable-fpm --with-config-file-path=/usr/local/php80/etc/ --with-config-file-scan-dir=/usr/local/php80/etc/php.d/

If configure fails, install missing dependencies, e.g.:

yum install libxml2-devel.x86_64

yum install sqlite-devel.x86_64

5. Build and install

make

make install

The build output confirms successful installation of binaries, extensions, and helper programs.

6. Verify PHP version /usr/local/php80/bin/php -v Output shows the Alpha version and DEBUG build.

7. Configure system links and php.ini

ln -s /usr/local/php80/bin/php /usr/bin/php80
cp php.ini-development /usr/local/php80/etc/php.ini
cp /usr/local/php80/etc/php-fpm.conf.default /usr/local/php80/etc/phpfpm.conf
cp /usr/local/php80/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf.default /usr/local/php80/etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
cp sapi/fpm/init.d.php-fpm /etc/init.d/php80-fpm
chmod +x /etc/init.d/php80-fpm

8. Start and verify PHP‑FPM

/etc/init.d/php80-fpm start
ps aux | grep php-fpm

Running processes confirm the FPM master and worker processes.

9. Test PHP execution

// index.php
<?php
var_dump(PHP_VERSION);
var_dump(PHP_VERSION_ID);
?>
curl localhost

Response shows string(11) "8.0.0alpha1" and int(80000).

10. Enable and configure Zend OPCache/JIT

; Enable OPCache
zend_extension=opcache
opcache.enable=1
opcache.enable_cli=1
opcache.memory_consumption=128
opcache.interned_strings_buffer=8
opcache.max_accelerated_files=10000
opcache.revalidate_freq=10
opcache.save_comments=0

Benchmarks using Zend/bench.php show minimal performance differences with JIT enabled on a VM (8 CPU, 16 GB RAM).

Conclusion

The procedure is a generic method for compiling any PHP version from source; more complex projects will require additional configure options and libraries. The article also demonstrates that PHP 8’s JIT feature works, though performance gains may vary depending on hardware.