Well, it's been 3 months since the last release of PHP 5.2 but 5.2.4 is finally here. Unlike the earlier releases of PHP 5.2 which have included both performance/memory optimizations as well as fixes for critical bugs (security issues and otherwise), this release is aimed at improving the overall stability of the 5.2 release chain (no doubt aiming to improve the image of PHP 5.2 with 4.4 being discontinued at the end of the year) by fixing more than 120 small bugs, as well as taking the opportunity to fix a few low-level security holes.
The PHP development team didn't slap a "0mg!!! j00 m|_|$7 |_|pd473 j00r php 0r 3l$3 j00 \/\/1ll b3 h4ck3d!!!" tag on this one but stability is always a good thing so I would recommend that all of my readers upgrade when they get a chance. Really though, since I do all the work, do you really have an excuse NOT to update?
Continue Reading 'Upgrading to PHP 5.2.4 on RHEL and CentOS' »
The files in my yum repository (32- and 64-bit) have been updated to the newest available versions of 'apr' (1.2.8), 'apr-util' (1.2.8), and 'pcre' (7.0). 'httpd' has also been rebuilt to take advantage of the newer versions. I would suggest that all users apply these updates.
If you're a regular reader of the site, you may have noticed the "Yum Repository" link at the top of the page. If so, congratulations, you're one of the first to try out a new service I'm offering on this site.
As it appears, most of the posts on this blog thus far have been how-to's on updating your RHEL & CentOS servers to use the newest versions of httpd, PHP, and MySQL. I'm still planning on creating those articles as needed, but only the source packages will be linked to the page. Binary releases for i386 (x86-64 coming soon) will now be available for easy updating through my brand new yum repository (and yes, before you ask, 'up2date' can read a yum repo).
I'm hoping that this will cut down on not only the effort required to update your systems, but also on the possible glitches that can come from updating a complex set of packages like PHP (where, with prior provided methods, you'd need to type out all of the file names that you wanted to install all at once, otherwise you'd have dependency issues with upgrading from an earlier release).
Continue Reading 'Announcing the Utter Ramblings EL4 repository' »
By popular request, I've decided to write a How-To on upgrading your RHEL or CentOS 4 system from httpd 2.0.52 to 2.2.3. I'm going to issue a warning upfront though, this is NOT a simple src.rpm rebuild like the PHP upgrade how-to that I wrote. Upgrading httpd requires filling a couple dependencies, building httpd, and then rebuilding everything that depends on httpd. For most people, that means just PHP. For some sites, that may include mod_perl, mod_python, etc.
If you're using some kind of management panel like Plesk, CPanel, etc. then DO NOT follow these instructions as you will break your server. In fact, if you have a separate development environment (like an OpenVZ VPS or a separate server) then I'd suggest using that because the build process actually requires you to remove your current copy of httpd. In any case, if you're still interested, keep reading.
To complete this upgrade you're going to need 3 things. First, you'll need 'root' access to your server. Without it, even if you can build the RPMs, you won't be able to install them. Second, you're going to need to install some dependencies to meet the build requirements. Finally, you're going to need to get the src.rpm files for httpd, apr, apr-util, and pcre from FC6.
Continue Reading 'Upgrading Apache httpd on RHEL and CentOS' »