How do I replace php 5.4 with 5.6 as base PHP?

Howdy -- the instructions on the Virtualmin site are for installing a second PHP version side-by-side with your existing PHP version.

In that case, you don't need to remove or replace anything.

You would then have a second PHP version, which should be detected when going into System Settings -> Re-Check Config. You would have a new PHP binary you could call when you need access to the other PHP version.

Yes you can use remi repo on Centos for this purpose:

https://rpms.remirepo.net/wizard/

To fix the download issue, open the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/php.conf and comment out SetHandler application/x-httpd-php and restart apache

You should also run Recheck-Configuration in virtualmin and make sure that everything is fine there.

I just want to clarify, we don't recommend using third party repositories for what you're describing, as we've seen a number of issues with that.

Mostafa's advice is how some folks accomplish that, though we've seen problems with packages from repositories such as that one which cause problems during some updates.

So if you want to use a repository other than the SCL repo, you can do that, but we recommend caution when doing so... and if you can make snapshots of your server (ie, if it's a VPS), we'd recommend that :-)

We don't recommend replacing PHP, and the SCL is not designed to do that.

What we suggest doing is installing a second PHP version, and have WHMCS use that second PHP version.

It sounds like in your case, that your cron jobs aren't using the second PHP version, and that is fixable.

You'd either want to not call PHP scripts directly from cron -- instead, call them via Apache with something like:

Or, if you have a script that's being run like this:

Modify the command line to use your preferred PHP version, something like:

@andreycheck Remi repo also supports multiphp the same way as SCL does

I remember that I had that download issue once when upgraded the base php packages however I could manage to fix it, and iirc it has something to do with php.conf file. wish we could find the reason this time and add it to the documentation for future references. This is actually one important feature that I LOVE about Virtualmin (and you don't find it on other panels e.g. cpanel, directadmin, plesk, ...) that Virtualmin manages what you have on your system, and you are not limited to just use a particular repository.

There isn't a Virtualmin-supported way to do that unfortunately.

There are ways to accomplish it, such as using third party repositories -- but we would recommend either using two PHP versions, or upgrading your distro to a more recent distro.