We are still seeing a lot of issues with the PHP 5.3 upgrade we are rolling out. Please understand that this is an upgrade that has to happen. All software has to be upgraded eventually. This is why you do not see very many companies still using MSDOS 6 and Windows 3.1 or Windows 95/98. Microsoft stopped supporting those pieces of software and companies have to decide do they want to prop it up and support it in-house – which requires a ton of resources and means that you just fall further and further behind as future upgrades are delivered to the public – or they could upgrade and upgrade their underlying software and procedures to work with the updated operating system.

This is what is happening with PHP 5.3 (and later PHP 5.4 and PHP 6, and so on). We are having to upgrade in order to fall in line with what is publicly available. Unfortunately we do not have the resources to support PHP 5.2 on our own, and even if we did, we would have users wanting the features and benefits of PHP 5.3 and later versions, making it not only impossible to indefinitely support PHP 5.2, but also making it unwise.

I implore you to check the scripts you have installed on your website. Find out what version you have installed, what the latest version of that script is, and if that script is compatible with PHP 5.3. You should also check and make sure that any plugins, components, extensions, or themes, or anything pertaining to your scripts is up to date and compatible with PHP 5.3. We have seen some issues where a script, such as Zen Cart, is up to date, but an addon module being used on the Zen Cart install is not up to date and not compatible with PHP 5.3. This breaks the functionality of the website in PHP 5.3 even though the base script (in this case Zen Cart) is up to date.

Insuring that your scripts are up to date is the best way you can insure that your website will remain functioning when PHP is upgraded on your server.

How do you do this?

1. Know what scripts are installed on your website. Are you using a popular script or scripts to drive your website? Are you using a script that you downloaded from another website and installed on your website? Are you using a custom made script, either made by you or someone you hired? These are questions that you need to know the answers to. We can help you identify some of the scripts on your website, but unfortunately we can’t identify everything. For example, if you are using “Joe’s PHP Website Creator” to drive your website, we may not know anything about it. “Joe’s PHP Website Creator” (this is a fake script name we are using to underline the point that there are many non-descript PHP scripts available on the web) isn’t a very popular script so we have no way of identifying it. If you installed something on your website, you should know about it.

2. Know what extensions/components/plugins/addon modules/themes you have installed for this script on your website. These terms all just signify extra packages you can install inside a script on your website to extend it’s functionality. WordPress refers to these as plugins. Joomla! refers to these as components. The terms essentially mean the same thing. A theme is like an extension that tells the base script how to display information on your website. Unfortunately, these are all inside a script. We really don’t have a sure-fire way of identifying what plugins you have installed. For example, we have a procedure for identifying WordPress scripts installed on our servers. But we have no way of knowing what plugins and themes and extensions you have installed on that WordPress script. There are just too many plugins and extensions available for WordPress for us to be able to accurately identify them. The same is true for Joomla! and any other script.

3. Once you have a list of the installed scripts and their versions and the installed extensions for each of those scripts and their version, then you need to contact the developers of that script and find out if those versions are compatible with PHP 5.3.

Most of the popular scripts, such as WordPress and Joomla! have community forums where you can interact with other users of these scripts and ask questions. I would recommend asking there, if what you have installed is compatible with PHP 5.3. Note: I would not recommend disclosing your website in these community forums.

Some of the popular scripts and their support forums and communities are below:

WordPress – http://wordpress.org/support

Joomla! – http://forum.joomla.org

Drupal – http://drupal.org/forum

phpBB – http://www.phpbb.com/community

SMF – http://www.simplemachines.org/community

Gallery – http://gallery.menalto.com/forum

Coppermine – http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net

Zen Cart – http://www.zen-cart.com/forum.php

Moodle – http://moodle.org/forums

These are just some scripts, there are many other scripts available. You would just have to identify what scripts you have installed, what extensions you have installed, and then find a community forum or contact link for the developer of those scripts or extensions. Some scripts may not have a community forum and you may have to contact the developer directly.

If you are unable to find the developer or any contact information for the developer of the script or if the developer does not respond to your inquiries, then this can be a sign that the script you are using is an abandoned project. The problem with an abandoned project is that it is no longer being maintained. If you are using an abandoned project as a script on your website, then your website may be open to various, unknown, and unpatched security holes. If you find out that you are using an abandoned project, then you really need to investigate using a newer script. You can try and keep using the script with PHP 5.3, but there’s no guarantees that it will work with PHP 5.3. This is part of the price that is paid when you decide to use an abandoned and unmaintained script.

4. If you are using a custom made script, either written by you or if you hired someone to develop the script for you. You either need to contact that developer or research this yourself. If you wrote your own script, you should have an idea of what it does and how it does what it does. I would encourage you to read through PHP’s guide to migrating to PHP 5.3 from PHP 5.2:

http://www.php.net/migration53

5. Once you have identified if your scripts are compatible with PHP 5.3 or if there is an upgrade path available to you to make you PHP 5.3 compatible, I would recommend upgrading and following that path as soon as possible (assuming that the upgrade path is safe for non-PHP 5.3 environments). This will help insure that your website remains only when it is transitioned to PHP 5.3.

These are steps you can take to insure a smoother transition from PHP 5.2 to PHP 5.3 for your website. If you have used the same script for many months or many years without have to upgrade it or maintain it, then this is probably more of a sign that your script will not be compatible with PHP 5.3. The value of a script isn’t ranked by how few upgrades and few maintenance steps it requires, the true value of a script is how well it is maintained, how often the developers release updates to the script to fix security holes and other bugs. A developer or software group that ignores the progression of the PHP language and does not readily update their scripts performs poorer than a developer or software group that stays on top of the latest PHP language developments and how to properly utilize those developments.

Steven

We are again scheduling the server maverick.wznoc.com for transition to PHP 5.3 by default. This event is scheduled for Tuesday, July 17th.

As with our previous post we are making this change to bring our servers more up to date with the current state of PHP.

To find out what server your account is on and if you are affected by this transition see our server identification tool at:

http://amshelp.com/identify.php

You need to insure that all of your scripts are up to date and compatible with PHP 5.3 before this transition is made. If you need help determining what scripts and what version of the scripts you have installed, contact us and we can help you.

Below is a list of popular scripts that are known to support PHP 5.3.

– WordPress

– Joomla! 1.5 (version 1.5.15+)

– Joomla! 2.5

– Drupal 6+

– phpBB3

– SMF

– Gallery

– Coppermine

– phpList

– Zen Cart (version 1.3.9+)

– Moodle

We strongly encourage you to keep your scripts up-to-date. Even if you don’t feel that it is necessary for you to update your script, please understand that failing to keep a script up to date is the number one reason why websites are hacked and defaced.

Steven

Due to the kernel panic issues we had on maverick yesterday, we decided to postpone this PHP 5.3 transition that was scheduled for today.

We are going to reschedule this transition to happen next week, Tuesday July 17th. We may add another server and transition two servers next Tuesday, but that has not yet been decided.

If you haven’t already done so, you should check to make sure that you are using all up-to-date scripts on your website. Also check and make sure that you are using up-to-date plugins, extensions, components, and themes. This will help to insure that the transition to PHP 5.3 goes smoothly for you.

Steven

We will be continuing our PHP 5.3 transition next week July 10. We will be converting the server maverick over to PHP 5.3 by default. As with our previous post we are making this change to bring our servers more up to date with the current state of PHP.

To find out what server your account is located on, try our server identification tool at:

http://amshelp.com/identify.php

You need to insure that all of your scripts are up to date and compatible with PHP 5.3 before this transition is made. If you need help determining what scripts and what version of the scripts you have installed, contact us and we can help you.

Below is a list of popular scripts that are known to support PHP 5.3.

– WordPress

– Joomla! 1.5 (version 1.5.15+)

– Joomla! 2.5

– Drupal 6+

– phpBB3

– SMF

– Gallery

– Coppermine

– phpList

– Zen Cart (version 1.3.9+)

– Moodle

We strongly encourage you to keep your scripts up-to-date. Even if you don’t feel that it is necessary for you to update your script, please understand that failing to keep a script up to date is the number one reason why websites are hacked and defaced.

Steven

We are going to be beginning the process of transitioning our servers over to PHP 5.3. Whereas right now, all PHP scripts on the server (unless you have requested otherwise) are running under the outdated and deprecated PHP 5.2 system, after this transition PHP scripts will execute under PHP 5.3 (the latest version of PHP 5.3, which right now is 5.3.13). We are set to begin transitioning to PHP 5.3 around Tuesday, June 5th.

This will begin a move to bring our servers more up to date. PHP 5.2 is outdated and no longer being supported. A transition to PHP 5.3 really should have happened several months ago, but because we wanted to make sure all of the popular scripts were updated to support PHP 5.3, we held off on performing this transition.

Pretty much every script you use should be compatible with PHP 5.3, because after all, PHP 5.2 is deprecated and no longer being supported. If you are using a script that does not work with PHP 5.3, then this should be a sign that it is outdated and insecure and no longer being properly maintained. It may be the case that you are using an outdated version of a script that has since added support for PHP 5.3. It cannot be stressed enough how important it is for you to keep your scripts (and your themes/plugins/components/extensions) up to date. When you don’t upgrade your scripts you are leaving your website open and vulnerable to an attack. It is up to you, as the website operator, to keep your scripts up to date.

You need to insure that all of your scripts are up to date and compatible with PHP 5.3 before this transition is made. If you need help determining what scripts and what version of the scripts you have installed, contact us and we can help you.

Below is a list of popular scripts that are known to support PHP 5.3.

– WordPress

– Joomla! 1.5 (version 1.5.15+)

– Joomla! 2.5

– Drupal 6+

– phpBB3

– SMF

– Gallery

– Coppermine

– phpList

– Zen Cart (version 1.3.9+)

– Moodle

Again we will be beginning this transition to PHP 5.3 around June 5th. You can help to minimize any problems on your account by insuring that you are using the latest version of any script on your web hosting account and insuring that it is compatible with PHP 5.3.

Steven