PHP is pretty fast moving with multiple maintained versions - a quick search of the package repo shows that FreeBSD packages 8.0 through 8.3. I run a couple different web services for personal use which require PHP, but I'm not a PHP developer and I don't really keep track of when new PHP versions release and when others go EOL (coincidentally I did a quick check and apparently today is the day that 8.0 goes EOL, so if I were using 8.0 this would be a now problem and not a down the road problem).
I use 8.2 for the stuff I run, not for any particular reason, it was just what was most current and had all the packages I needed when I most recently set up the jails for them. But eventually (in about two years if Wikipedia is to be believed), 8.2 will be EOL and I'll need to move to a newer version. I regularly update my jails with pkg upgrade of course, but as it stands this will only update my packages to the latest 8.2 version - two years from now I'm going to stop seeing updates to my PHP version and have to manually convert all my php82 packages to php84 or 91 or whatever is current at that time. This is going to be a bit of a hassle to have to do manually.
What is the best way to handle this? On a server with 15+ different php82-* packages, what's the best way to convert each of them to their php83 (or higher) equivalent? I know some packages have meta ports that do this, where there would be a generic non-versioned package that tracks the latest stable release regardless of specific version, but I don't see one for php. Do I just need to keep an eye on support windows and do manual upgrades when the time draws near? Or is there some way to have the pkg utility handle the move for me as part of my normal updates without jumping through extra hoops?
I use 8.2 for the stuff I run, not for any particular reason, it was just what was most current and had all the packages I needed when I most recently set up the jails for them. But eventually (in about two years if Wikipedia is to be believed), 8.2 will be EOL and I'll need to move to a newer version. I regularly update my jails with pkg upgrade of course, but as it stands this will only update my packages to the latest 8.2 version - two years from now I'm going to stop seeing updates to my PHP version and have to manually convert all my php82 packages to php84 or 91 or whatever is current at that time. This is going to be a bit of a hassle to have to do manually.
What is the best way to handle this? On a server with 15+ different php82-* packages, what's the best way to convert each of them to their php83 (or higher) equivalent? I know some packages have meta ports that do this, where there would be a generic non-versioned package that tracks the latest stable release regardless of specific version, but I don't see one for php. Do I just need to keep an eye on support windows and do manual upgrades when the time draws near? Or is there some way to have the pkg utility handle the move for me as part of my normal updates without jumping through extra hoops?