Blog: Manually managing tool versions and adding custom utilities

src/content/authors/bill-seremetis.md

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+---
+name: Bill Seremetis
+firstName: Bill
+avatarUrl: http://seremetis.net/static/bill.jpg
+---
+
+[Bill](https://www.drupal.org/u/bserem) is the Managed Services team’s Tech Lead
+in [Annertech](https://www.annertech.com), a long time Drupal developer and
+DDEV user.
+His career started as a site builder, but quickly turned into systems administrator
+and backend developer. He loves steering conversations towards workable solutions
+and improving developer's lives.
+
+When not behind a screen you'll find him holding a camera and climbing easy routes.

src/content/blog/ddev-bundled-tools-using-custom-versions.md

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+---
+title: "How to Downgrade Terminus in DDEV's Web Container and Customize Other Bundled Tools"
+pubDate: 2025-06-30
+summary: How to upgrade/downgrade a utility provided by DDEV in `ddev-webserver`, or add a custom utility for a given project
+author: Bill Seremetis
+featureImage:
+  src: /img/blog/2025/06/ddev-tool-install.png
+  alt: "Installing custom software packages in the containerized environment"
+  shadow: true
+categories:
+  - Guides
+  - DevOps
+---
+
+_This guest post is by DDEV community member and [Drupal](https://drupal.org)
+contributor [Bill Seremetis](/blog/author/bill-seremetis/) and sponsored by
+[Annertech](https://www.annertech.com)._
+
+DDEV comes bundled with a predefined set of tools, Pantheon's `terminus` being one of them.
+The latest releases of `terminus` are not compatible with older PHP versions like PHP 8.1, though,
+so we needed to downgrade it inside DDEV's `ddev-webserver` Docker image.
+
+This guide covers how to downgrade `terminus` and will also explain how to use the same technique to install
+additional custom tools.
+
+Please note there are many ways to install packages in a container. We will
+cover [extra Dockerfiles](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/extend/customizing-images/#adding-extra-dockerfiles-for-webimage-and-dbimage)
+here, but also [check `webimage_extra_packages` and `dbimage_extra_packages` in your
+`config.yaml`for more details](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/extend/customizing-images/#adding-extra-debian-packages-with-webimage_extra_packages-and-dbimage_extra_packages)).
+
+## Case study: Manually Downgrading Terminus
+
+[Terminus](https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases) dropped
+support for PHP 8.1 in recent versions, but some of our
+projects still use PHP 8.1. We had to downgrade the DDEV-bundled version of `terminus` for those
+projects by using a custom Dockerfile:
+
+```dockerfile
+# .ddev/web-build/Dockerfile.terminus
+# Terminus 4 drops support for PHP 8.1 which we still need
+ARG TERMINUS_VERSION="3.6.2"
+RUN curl -L --fail -o /usr/local/bin/terminus https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases/download/${TERMINUS_VERSION}/terminus.phar && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/terminus
+```
+
+`terminus` is just an example here, it could be any command you wish,
+[either because you are running an older PHP version](https://github.com/pantheon-systems/terminus/releases/tag/4.0.0)
+or the bundled version [has a bug that ruins things for you](https://github.com/platformsh/cli/discussions/166).
+
+## Installing custom tools
+
+You can obviously use the same techniques to install a variety of custom tools:
+
+```dockerfile
+# .ddev/web-build/Dockerfile.fzf
+# fooscript relies on fzf
+# fooscript lists all your Pantheon projects using a fuzzy finder list
+ARG FZF_VERSION="0.62.0"
+RUN curl -s -L https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/releases/download/v${FZF_VERSION}/fzf-${FZF_VERSION}-linux_amd64.tar.gz | tar xvz -C /usr/local/bin/ && chmod +x /usr/local/bin/fzf
+```
+
+## Resources
+
+- [DDEV Pantheon integration documentation](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/providers/pantheon/)
+- [Adding extra Dockerfiles for `webimage` and `dbimage`](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/extend/customizing-images/#adding-extra-dockerfiles-for-webimage-and-dbimage)
+- [Adding extra Debian packages in DDEV](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/extend/customizing-images/#adding-extra-debian-packages-with-webimage_extra_packages-and-dbimage_extra_packages)
+- [Customizing DDEV images with a custom Dockerfile](https://ddev.com/blog/customizing-ddev-local-images-with-a-custom-dockerfile/)
+
+## Contribute to DDEV
+
+If you like DDEV then you are welcome to contribute! You can join the [Discord channel](/s/discord),
+create a new [DDEV Add-on](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/extend/additional-services/),
+or blog about how you use DDEV in your daily workflow.
+We’re always happy to hear from you on any of our [support channels](https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/stable/users/support/).