ART 5.3 migration topic

[faris]

Unfortunately the ART 5.3 series is about to bite the dust. but many of us don't think upgrading to 5.4 is a good idea just yet.

This topic is a sort of starter page so those of us who want to stick to 5.3 can discuss the options available.

As I see it, we can:
1) Go back to stock Centos php 5.3
2) Move to some other repo's LTS php 5.3 (if such a thing exists)

Going back to stock will, at the very least, probably require that php-eaccelerator (if you use it) be removed to start with.

What about all those php MySQL client libraries and stuff. Anything to worry about there?

Has anyone done any tests yet?

Has anyone tried a "yum downgrade php" with the atomic repo disabled?

I'm not going to be able to do any testing until the weekend - I'd still love to know if anyone has had any success or disaster so I'm not duplicating any effort.

[prupert]

We have done several migrations from ART PHP 5.3 to CentOS PHP 5.3 once CentOS 5 delivered packages for PHP 5.3. We did this precisely to ensure that we could provide long term support. Although we do appreciate the effort Atomic is taking to push out updates and packaged releases (otherwise we wouldn't hang out here!), it's not a yum channel to rely on if you don't want to be faced with unexpected major upgrades and seek guaranteed long term support and a high level of QA and consistency.

It's definitely not as easy as a yum downgrade and there are some modules missing for the php53 packages on CentOS 5. If there is enough interest in it, I could write a howto for an Atomic php -> CentOS 5 php53 migration if I can find some spare time next week.

The downgrade on CentOS 6 machines should be relatively easy, but I figure that most folks here - as we do - are already using the stock PHP packages on CentOS 6.

[faris]

All of mine are Centos 6, so I'd appreciate tips on that.

I do have some Centos 5 systems but those can be upgraded to 5.4 as they are not used by random customers running random scripts. But I'll bet there are many who would kill for a HowTo for Centos 5 so yes, please please do a write up when you have time.

In the meantime, I think we would all benefit from one last 5.3 from the Atomic channel to get this vulnerability dealt with so that we can just get to upgrading rather than being in panic mode.

So please Scott -- one more release to take care of this issue, then we'll leave you in peace

[Highland]

Just as an FYI, PHP 5.3 will go EOL once 5.5 rolls out live (may happen tomorrow). Once that is done, it's unlikely 5.3 will see any more updates, meaning ART rolls out the last 5.3 update and maybe rolls it into a legacy channel.

[scott]

FYI, the legacy channel is called "Nucleus"

[faris]

Is, as in it is available now?

[hostingguy]

5.4 is a no go on our systems as well.

[mikeshinn]

https://www.atomicorp.com/wiki/index.php/Nucleus

[hostingguy]

Just for my education, what is the purpose of using the nucleus repo for getting 5.3 if its unsupported, when we could just revert back to the core php53 or alt-php53 packages from Centos, Cloud Linux, or EPEL/IUS for free?

Is there something in this repo that we wouldnt be able to get from the others?
Initially most of us used atomic to upgrade php because centos 5 didn't really offer a good and easy way to get these along with Plesk, but now that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Code: Select all

yum install yum-plugin-replace
yum replace php --replace-with php53

[scott]

The same reason you would have used it before. Its the atomic design, so it uses a different (newer) pcre, supports mcrypt/mhsh, linked against a newer mysql, has additional extensions etc. Plus the support packages, like the pecl extensions and whatnot (memcache, apc, eaccelerator, ioncube, memcached, etc.)

[faris]

I've now run my tests and have been able to downgrade from php 5.4 and php5.3 to stock Centos 5.3 with no *visible* errors or issues. Visible means nothing I could see. I could have missed something. Heck, I'm BOUND to have missed something.

http://www.atomicorp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7037

But as Scott points out, I strongly recommend using the Neucleus repo if possible instead of stock Centos. Scott's php is better as outlined in his post, and you don't lose mcrypt/eaccelerator etc etc.