Expose PHP version in dashboard

[Dereckson]

There are concerns about PHP version.

Some developers and users would like to see this technical detail a little bit more exposed.

This could be currently really interesting and valuable to expose it, as this creates an awareness of "it's still PHP 5.6" vs. "it's already on PHP 7.1".

This also allow to see on a glance the full web stack versions as security concerns will primarily arise in PHP and WordPress.

[Dereckson]

Patch to expose PHP version, against r39985

[SergeyBiryukov]

Hi @Dereckson welcome to WordPress Trac! Thanks for the ticket.

This was previously suggested in comment:8:ticket:35554, and the current consensus is that most users don't know or don't care what PHP is, so adding any system information to an area designated for end-users is unlikely.

[lukecavanagh]

@SergeyBiryukov 

I feel a fair few users would want to know which PHP version is being used on the site. If users did not care what PHP is or which version, there would not be such a big push for PHP7 as default.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to lukecavanagh:

If users did not care what PHP is or which version, there would not be such a big push for PHP7 as default.

I think the push for PHP 7 is mainly advocated by developers and hosts rather than end users.

[lukecavanagh]

@SergeyBiryukov 

Developers are part of WordPress end users though, a pretty wide mixed type of users, uses WordPress.

[MattyRob]

If we start to expose the PHP version why not also the MySQL version? Perhaps the Apache version or other web server variant and it's version too. All of this supporting structure is needed by WordPress so why just the PHP version?

I'm not being serious, just raising the point that this is a starting point and where would it end.

This information is easily available to find if you want to go looking for it. Some plugins report this in performance / diagnostic sections for example.

Also linked to #16778 that shows this information is already shared with WordPress API for the purposes of developing planning (we hope).

[lukecavanagh]

@MattyRob

I did spot this in the repo.

​https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-system-info/

[lukecavanagh]

Server Information

[MattyRob]

Seems that plugins exists for this for those users that are interested in finding out more about their server environment. Suggest that this ticket could be closed to avoid clutter for the less interested user.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Closing in favor of #39165 and #41191.