PHP Updates on all servers

[WN-Ali]

PLEASE READ OVER THE FOLLOWING ANNOUNCEMENT FOR MORE DETAILED INFORMATION ON THIS UPGRADE http://forums.wirenine.com/suphp-bei...ting-t513.html

Dear WireNine clients,

Since PHP 4 has come to it's end of life, we will be upgrading all servers to PHP 5.x as default and moving PHP 4.x as secondary on all servers. Your web sites will now be using PHP 5 by default instead of PHP 4, but you can easily switch back to PHP 4 from cPanel by modifying your PHP settings.

We expect to have these upgrades completed by 01/25/2008

*** Important Note ***

Along with the PHP 5 upgrade on all servers, we will be switching to suphp instead of mod_php. Some servers are already running this configuration, and have had no issues. If you encounter any issues, please use this checklist to make sure your problem is not related to any of these BEFORE opening a support ticket.

-- All .htaccess files do NOT have any php_value or php_flag lines in it.

-- All .htaccess files do NOT have the addhandler enabling php5 as was required before

-- No custom php.ini files from before (make a new one if you need to customize features)

-- No 777/666 permissions on scripts (not allowed in suexec environment)

-- Login to CPanel and go to PHP Configuration page. Toggle between PHP4 and PHP5 to make sure one version does work for you.

-- Change all php includes to use full system path, not URL. This has been disabled by PHP for security reasons.

If you have disabled mod_security in .htaccess file, by using the following line

SecFilterEngine Off

Please remove it or it will cause Internal Server Errors on your web site

If you are parsing .html files as php, please remove any lines in .htaccess for that and replace it with this line instead

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .html .htm .php

This will parse your .html files as php.

The support for PHP4 will be permanently removed in the near future, as it's no longer being developed or maintained.

Please feel free to send us a ticket if you experience any issues.

I am subscribed to this thread, so if you need any help on this you can reply to it (it is preferable to ask for help here so other users can also find the information they are looking for, if they have the same problem).

[WN-Ali]

We have started updating the servers.

If you are getting Internal Server Error on your web site, please check the list above to make sure your web site is not breaking any rules of the new PHP setup.

If your web site still requires the use of PHP 4, go to cPanel and change your default php version to php4 under PHP Configuration.

[WN-Ali]

After you have applied all the settings above, but are still getting errors please check the Error log in cpanel to help you pin point the error. If you have disabled mod_security in .htaccess file, by using the following line

SecFilterEngine Off

Please remove this line as it will no longer work, and only cause errors on your web site.

If you are parsing php in .html files, please remove any lines in .htaccess to do that and put this line in .htaccess instead

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .html .htm .php

This will parse your php in .html and .htm files.

PHP4 will be permanently removed in the near future, as it's no longer being developed or maintained.

[webcomm]

Hi,

Can you tell me when support for PHP4 will be dropped? That is, when I'll no longer have the option to set my account to PHP4 in cpanel?

The combination of suphp and PHP5 looks like it's going to be a problem for me. The CMS I use in four different Wirenine accounts, Xaraya, loses some functionality when PHP 5 is run as a CGI. It's my understanding that suphp means that PHP is being run as a CGI and not an Apache module. The suphp + PHP 5 combination will eliminate the short URL functionality on my sites, breaking many of my links. By short URLs, I mean that the ability to use directory-style URLs instead of query-string URLs, will no longer work.

It turns out that suphp + PHP 4 is not a problem, but only because someone fixed the CMS to handle that combination. Whenever I switch my config to PHP 5, though, the links on my sites don't work. It's not that the CMS can't handle PHP 5. It just can't handle PHP 5 run as a CGI.

Fixing the CMS so it handles PHP 5 as a CGI is not something I have the programming skills to do, so at this point I'm just wondering how much time I have left before I can no longer opt for PHP 4. Unfortunately, there's a good chance I'll need to move my accounts off of Wirenine. Naturally I'm not looking forward to that, because of the amount of work involved and also because WireNine has been a great host, generally speaking. There's a small chance that Xaraya developers may come up with a fix for PHP 5 run as a CGI, but I don't know how much interest there is in that. But I figure the more time I have to run PHP 4, the greater the chance that I can come up with a fix for PHP 5 as a CGI.

Thanks!
Ryan

[WN-Ali]

PHP4 will be permanently removed in the near future, as it's no longer being developed or maintained. suPHP with PHP 5 should not be affecting your ability to use mod rewrite to modify your script urls. You can open a support ticket with us and we will do the best we can to help you get your issues resolved if any.

Most web hosting companies have already dropped support for PHP 4, we are one of the few ones that have continued to still have it on our servers still but we will be removing it in the near future. There is no exact ETA for this removal, but you should contact the script developers and request to make sure they support PHP 5.

[webcomm]

Hi Ali,

It turns out there was a solution... I just hadn't found it yet. All is well now.
For any other Xaraya users who stumble upon this, the fix is at http://www.xaraya.com/index.php/xarbb/topic/2952#12588

Thanks,
Ryan

[WN-Ali]

Thank you for sharing the helpful link Ryan, it will be helpful to other users who utilize Xaraya.