Thread: PHP 5.3 Upgrade on Shared/Reseller servers (& ability to switch back to PHP 5.2)

Hello

Please note that we intend to switch all servers from PHP version 5.2 to 5.3 on Tuesday 10th January. PHP 5.2 has been "end of life" for some time now, so we must proceed to upgrade in order to maintain secure servers.

It is very important that you take some action to check your scripts and software in use on your hosting account is compatible with PHP 5.3. Most scripts should already support 5.3 and it is just a case of you ensuring you are fully up to date on the latest version of that script/software (something you should be regularly doing anyway). We do understand some customers may not be on top of this, so for 2 months (60 days) we will be allowing the ability for you to switch your site back to PHP 5.2 temporarily so you can test between both versions if required.

From Tuesday March 13th PHP 5.2 support will be withdrawn entirely from our shared/reseller servers.

For our more technical users here is the official PHP 5.2 to 5.3 migration guide:

PHP: Migrating from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x - Manual

We will be making further posts to this thread over the coming days to provide more detail to assist you with this change so please "subscribe" and be pro-active about this update before the time arrives.

Thank you,

As a followup I wanted to take a moment and explain why we are giving this notice and what has changed between PHP 5.2 and PHP 5.3 and how it may affect you.

PHP 5.3 has several features that have been deprecated, which means they are eventually being removed from PHP. A feature is deprecated when it is considered insecure or if they have just found a better way of doing it. In PHP 5.3 the deprecated features will show errors or warnings when used and in PHP 5.4 many of them will be removed completely.

For the most part you can just make sure any scripts you are using on your site are fully up to date. If you are not sure how to do this, we have a free tool that you can access within your cPanel account called Softaculous which will help you upgrade many scripts you have installed. Look for the Softaculous icon in cPanel and give it a try. If you are having trouble with Softaculous open a support ticket and one of our 24/7 support staff will help you figure it out.

There are 2 types of deprecated features; php.ini directives and functions. If you have written your own PHP code or hired somebody to do it these are the areas you will need to review in your code to make sure it is compatible with PHP 5.3. The php.ini directives are not something you need to worry about unless you have a custom php.ini file in your account somewhere.

Deprecated php.ini Directives (will cause an E_DEPRECATED error if used)

• define_syslog_variables
• register_globals
• register_long_arrays
• safe_mode
• magic_quotes_gpc
• magic_quotes_runtime
• magic_quotes_sybase
• Comments starting with # are now deprecated in php.ini files.

Deprecated php.ini Functions

• call_user_method() (use call_user_func() instead)
• call_user_method_array() (use call_user_func_array() instead)
• define_syslog_variables()
• dl()
• ereg() (use preg_match() instead)
• ereg_replace() (use preg_replace() instead)
• eregi() (use preg_match() with the 'i' modifier instead)
• eregi_replace() (use preg_replace() with the 'i' modifier instead)
• set_magic_quotes_runtime() and its alias, magic_quotes_runtime()
• session_register() (use the $_SESSION superglobal instead)
• session_unregister() (use the $_SESSION superglobal instead)
• session_is_registered() (use the $_SESSION superglobal instead)
• set_socket_blocking() (use stream_set_blocking() instead)
• split() (use preg_split() instead)
• spliti() (use preg_split() with the 'i' modifier instead)
• sql_regcase()
• mysql_db_query() (use mysql_select_db() and mysql_query() instead)
• mysql_escape_string() (use mysql_real_escape_string() instead)
• Passing locale category names as strings is now deprecated. Use the LC_* family of constants instead.
• The is_dst parameter to mktime(). Use the new timezone handling functions instead.

If you have a custom built site then we recommend that you try contacting the company that built it for you. In many cases they will be able to verify if any action is needed and often times quickly adjust your site to be PHP 5.3 compatible.

When the change to PHP 5.3 occurs you'll be able to switch your account back to PHP 5.2 by adding the following line into /home/account/.htaccess where account is the username you log into cPanel with.

Code:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php52 .php

This a bump to remind everybody that this upgrade from PHP 5.2 to 5.3 is occuring on all shared servers this coming tuesday night.

There has been some useful client discussion here - Any plans to update to PHP 5.3

Current expectation is that we will be completed by 11pm (30 minutes time) we will update again shortly.

All work was completed as expected.

Bump and final reminder that PHP 5.2 is removed entirely from UH shared/reseller servers tomorrow (24 hours from now).

As per pur schedule PHP 5.2 support was removed overnight leaving only PHP version 5.3 on our shared/reseller servers.

Thank you,