PHP RFC: Minimum supported versions for PHP 8.6

• Version: 0.1
• Date: 2026-05-03
• Author: Eric Norris, erictnorris@gmail.com
• Status: Draft

This RFC proposes a slate of minimum supported software versions for PHP 8.6

• MySQL 5.7.3 and MariaDB 10.2.4 for persistent connections, so we may use COM_RESET_CONNECTION.
• Autoconf 2.71 for builds from source, so we may use C11 standards.

MySQL 5.7.3 and MariaDB 10.2.4 introduced COM_RESET_CONNECTION, a SQL command to reinitialize a connection's state without requiring reauthentication. This is important to be able to safely reuse connections across requests, i.e. persistent connections, without fear of being in an undesirable leftover state.

MySQL 5.7.3 was released on December 3rd, 2013 and reached its end-of-life alongside all 5.7 minor versions on October 25, 2023 (https://www.mysql.com/support/eol-notice.html).

MariaDB 10.2.4 was released on February 17th, 2017 and reached its end-of-life alongside all 10.2 minor versions on May 23rd, 2022 (https://endoflife.date/mariadb).

This RFC proposes that we use COM_RESET_CONNECTION in PDO and mysqlnd when reusing persistent connections. Users that are on MySQL or MariaDB databases from before this feature was implemented may upgrade to PHP 8.6, but would not be able to use persistent connections. This means that their software could continue to work, but they might lose a performance optimization.

PHP 8.6

None expected.

• PDO and mysqlnd: users on versions of MySQL and MariaDB before COM_RESET_CONNECTION was implemented may not use persistent connections.

Each proposal is voted on separately and requires a 2/3 majority:

• COM_RESET_CONNECTION https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/21857

Links to external references, discussions, or RFCs.