PHP 5.4 and beyond

[faris]

At some point in the near future we'll be upgrading our hosting servers from 5.1.6 to the ART 5.3.x branch.

A number of features and functions from 5.1.6 and older are deprecated in 5.3.x, such as safe mode and eregi() and these are used extensively by a lot of scripts our customers are using.

On the positive side of things, the features in question are deprecated and not removed, which means they will still work with 5.3.x (I assume!).

I'm assuming they will be removed completely in 5.4.x, however.

Scott - I know some crystal ball gazing is required to answer my question, but can you give me an idea of how long are you likely to keep pushing out updates for 5.3.x before we would be forced to move to 5.4.x?

On a related note, how complicated is it to compile this stuff myself from source so that I can continue to support myself if need be? I know the actual compilation is just a matter of issuing a few commands, but I presume I have to take X, Y and Z into account to make sure it works with Plesk and whatever version of MySQL, and also somehow deal with php-pear and gd (assuming I would not just do a --with-gd or whatever) and what have you, and that isn't necessarily straightforward. I don't even know where to begin.

Keeping in mind that it has to work with Plesk and that I can't break the MySQL support, is there a particular forum or mailing list that might be more appropriate to get help with this sort of thing?

Thanks,

Faris.

[scott]

Zend Optimizer being deprecated is the other thing to be aware of. If you don't use that then its no big deal.

Compiling things is pretty trivial, but the again my perspective is probably a little different I highly recommend using build systems like mock if you're planning on doing this for multiple systems/architectures.

Last but not least, PHP 5.3.x is standard in RHEL 5.6, so whenever CentOS 5.6 is out then 5.3 will be the standard by hook or by crook

[faris]

Thanks Scott,

I had forgotten about that. That's sort of good. Unfortunately we still have four Plesk systems running Centos4, including one with 300+ domains.

But it does give me time, I suppose. If we go the 5.3.x ASL route, if I'm lucky then by the time you drop support for it we'll be ready to migrate those to new installs with Centos 5 (or 6) and php 5.3.

I'd still like to compile my own though. Without going into detail, what's involved once you have mock installed and a suitable script and config? Download new source, run build script, drink coffee, done? Or is there more to it than that?

[scott]

The short version:

yum install mock

mock -r epel-4-i386 whatever.src.rpm

[paulie]

Last but not least, PHP 5.3.x is standard in RHEL 5.6, so whenever CentOS 5.6 is out then 5.3 will be the standard by hook or by crook

I just had a mild stroke there... Its not standard its an optional package : http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_H ... index.html

RedHat 6 has 5.3 as standard but thats a problem for another year.

Paul.

[faris]

I just had a mild stroke there...

That was also my initial reaction when I thought it was going to be standard.

But then I realised that other than Zend optimizer support, which is neither here not there and only related to speed enhancements, 5.3 remains completely backward compatible with 5.1.6 with the exceptions that I have discovered (file paths are more strictly checked). The deprecated functions and features are still there and working - they are just deprecated.

Or am I wrong here?

Faris.

[scott]

Well Zend Optimizer isnt available for it, they have a new project (requires a key) so it wont be something we can distribute in atomic. On the other hand given some of the results from the mod_ruid2 thread dumping optimizer is probably a good thing. Honestly I think the mysql 5.1 update was probably more of an aggressive move than php 5.2->5.3. Sure Zend is going to break but other than that like you said the code is still backwards compatible, albeit with deprecation warnings.

[BruceLee]

I totally agree. Even if it's optional...the main argument is that it's in stable release and can be used. Being optional does not mean that's not ready.

Concerning Zend which I avoid and don't use unless some client really forces me too:
I thought that there are two alternatives for PHP 5.3.X
-Zend Guard Loader http://www.zend.com/en/products/guard/downloads
-Zend Server Community Edition: http://www.zend.com/products/server-ce/downloads

Do those require keys and/or are commercial and do not cover the Zend Optimizer functionality?
Might be useful to know for someone who really needs Zend for hosting clients.

[breun]

Honestly I think the mysql 5.1 update was probably more of an aggressive move than php 5.2->5.3.

RHEL/CentOS 5 never had PHP 5.2. RHEL/CentOS 5.5 comes with PHP 5.1.6.

[faris]

If I remember correctly, Zend Optimizer included a decoder for PHP code that was encrypted using Zend's encryption technology, which I guess is called Zend Guard.

With no Optimizer (without a key) available then I'm guessing that Zend Guard Loader now provides the decoding facility as a stand-alone option and won't need a key.

I seem to recall seeing a number of products over the years that specified that they REQUIRE Zend Optimizer. I'm sure I have a few installed. But I'm guessing that they just needed it to decrypt the code, so Zend Guard Loader will do the same job. I hope!

[breun]

That's what I was thinking as well, faris. I haven't looked into it or tested anything yet, though.

[scott]

Ah actually thats good information, do we know for a fact that zend guard does not require a key to decode zend files? If it does I could make that a Provides/Obsoletes package for zend-optimizer

[faris]

It is kind of contradictory. First of all it confirms what I thought about Optimizer:

Zend Optimizer is a free application that runs the files encoded using Zend Guard and enhances the overall performance of your PHP applications

Then in the release notes for Zend Guard, it says:

- Zend Guard 5.5 with PHP 5.X requires Zend Optimizer 3.3.x and above
...

* Support for Zend Guard 5.5 and evaluation support is provided via
the Zend forums at http://forums.zend.com

I guess more research is required but it is past my bedtime so I'll leave it to others for now

EDIT: From the Zend FAQ:

Q: What do my customers need to run Zend encoded-applications?

They need to use Zend Guard Loader (for PHP 5.3) or Zend Optimizer (for PHP 5.2 and earlier), which can be freely downloaded. They also need to be using PHP 4.2.x or above.