[BlueOnyx:14081] 5106 PHP update

[George F. Nemeyer]

I've got a 5106 install that needs a later PHP version than the stock
5.1.6 which has JSON support for a forum that the machine is running.
Apparently 5.2 is the oldest one that has JSON.

After hunting around, I found this site: <http://iuscommunity.org>

It's run by some folks from RackSpace Hosting that needed to keep a bunch
of older servers going.  The site specializes in PHP and MySQL builds and
also has some other updated utilites and programs for older verisons of
RH5/6 and Centos5/6.  There's individual repositories for the various
releases.  It needs the epel (extra programs for enterprize linux) repos
for some dependences.

There's also a yum "replace" module provided that helps simplify things.

I gave it a try, basically following the instructions here:
<http://www.howtoforge.com/centos-5.6-php53-common-conflicts-with-php-common>

I picked 5.3 since that one hopefully would have less conflicts than later
ones.  The installion went OK.  I saved a copy of the old php.ini file
since it looked like it had some BX-specific settings, and modified the
new file as best I could...though a 'safe mode' apparently has been
changed/eliminated in later versions.  I did NOT try to upgrade MySQL.

I rebooted the main web server, and the forum came back up just fine, and
showed it was using the 5.3 version, and I made sure other parts
worked...which it all seemed to do.  Json was working and the issue it was
having with the old version was cured.

I had an open BX login window as well, though I had not rebooted the
admin server.  I looked around with it and it seemed working.  I did NOT
try messing with any settings from the BX pages however.

I then tried rebooting the machine, and that's when trouble happened.  It
came up just fine, and logs showed the various bits of the BX services
startups all seemed ok.  The forum site was up just fine, too.

The admin server was up and running, but... attempt to log into it gave:

     Fatal error: Call to undefined function ccephp_new() in
       /usr/sausalito/ui/libPhp/CceClient.php on line 27

on the browser.   So the admin server was running, but the UI was
broken... things had gone too well!

I'm now wondering if there's some config thing that might be tweeked, or
that needs to be set, or is this more of a real problem.

I expect that some UI version might work with PHP > 5.1.6, and looked at a
couple of later versions of CceClient I downloaded, but they were
identical code.

It would seem that having the later PHP and SQL versions would help lots
of people with older hardware if the Sausalito UI can be made to use them.

I'd appreciate any insight, or things I might to to help narrow the issue
if possible.

Regards,

=^_^=  Tigerwolf