| Apache/PHP updates this weekend & PHP 5.3 upgrade date set! |
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| Maintenance Window Start: 2011-06-24 at 10:00 PM (BST) Maintenance Window End: 2011-06-25 at 5:00 AM (BST) * USA based servers will be upgraded towards the end of the maintenance window to compensate for the time zone differences. * This past weekend, behind the scenes, we converted our POP3 and IMAP software from Courier to Dovecot. With only a few very minor issues experienced, we deem the conversions to be a great success! In comparison to Courier, Dovecot features a lower memory footprint, improved IMAP performance, is more versatile and also provides BlackBerry® Fastmail support. This upcoming weekend we will be performing a second wave of scheduled maintenance to ensure that all servers are running Apache 2.2 and that PHP is updated to 5.2.17. Servers already using the latest versions will still be undergoing this scheduled maintenance. Expected downtime is 5-10 minutes per server. Apache will be recompiled with mod_proxy support which will provide improved support for custom mod_rewrite tasks and wildcard SSL certificates amongst a few other things. The second addition, mod_deflate, now provides the DEFLATE output filter which allows output from the server to be compressed prior to being sent to the visitor over the network. Note that this processing takes additional CPU and memory on the server as well as on the client browser. So please make conscious decisions about which documents you need to compress. PHP will be upgraded to the latest 5.2 release version 5.2.17 which addresses a bug that could crash servers when the software is given the task of converting a large floating point number. The problem however only impacts a handful of our servers (it was subsequently patched in other version updates) and it’s a general PHP update around the board other besides that. With that said, we do have intentions of upgrading to PHP 5.3 next month. No date has been set in stone and we will keep you informed. PHP 5.3 was released 2009-11-19 and included a number of significant changes that made upgrading prior to now nearly impossible without causing major headaches. List of incompatibilities between 5.3 and previous versions: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/migration53.incompatible.php Although the large majority of web scripts are now compatible, there are still some may need upgraded, tweaked and or remain incompatible. Do your checking! For those that have questions, please consider joining our community (http://www.clook.info/community/threads/php-5-3.8030/) where we have an ongoing discussion regarding script compatibility and the update. We will update this announcement prior to and after the conclusion of the maintenance window. Have a great weekend! |
| Updated by Alec B. on 23rd Jun 2011 @ 20:54pm |