[BlueOnyx:21533] Re: Upgrading PHP releases.

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Brian,

> As per http://php.net/supported-versions.php anything prior to PHP 5.6
> has not been supported for some time, I was wanting to quickly set up a
> box to test out an application without deploying to my live servers
> prior to testing for bugs and vulnerabilities, the app requires PHP 5.6
> as a minimum as most do these days…

We do offer maintained and current versions of PHP as an add-on for
BlueOnyx:

http://shop.blueonyx.it/blueonyx/system/php.html

Purchase of that item will give you access to PHP Packages designed to
work with BlueOnyx. That includes:

Latest PHP-5.3
Latest PHP-5.4
Latest PHP-5.5
Latest PHP-5.6
Latest PHP-7.0
Latest PHP-7.1

On BlueOnyx 5209R you can even install all of these at the same time and
can decide to run Vsites on selected versions of PHP via either suPHP or
PHP-FPM.

If you purchase that package with support, you will also get all updated
PHP versions that are released by us during your ongoing support period.

> I believe the thread mentioned things breaking in the web portal side of
> things if a later release was used

The BlueOnyx GUI is compiled with a PHP Zend module named "CCE", which
interfaces between the GUI's PHP pages and our CODB database backend.
This module is compiled against the OS provided PHP version. On BlueOnyx
5209R (CentOS 7) this is of course PHP-5.4.16. Replacing the onboard PHP
with an updated version will break the connectivity of the CCE module,
as it will no longer be compatible with the PHP version you're then using.

However: BlueOnyx 5207R, 5208R and 5209R do have a fallback mechanism.
If the CCE Zend module is no longer working, then the GUI will
automatically switch to use a native PHP class instead for the
connectivity to CODB. This fallback is about 6-7 times slower than the
CCE module, though. So your GUI will continue to work, but you might
notice a loss of agility.

If you feel adventurous you can of course compile your own PHP into a
separate directory and simply not replace the onboard PHP. You can then
still use the "stock" PHP for the GUI and the manually compiled PHP for
your websites. But then you'll have the troubles that roughly every 1-3
months a new version of PHP is released and eventually you need to
recompile yours again, because it's getting too old and too vulnerable.

If you look at it that way then the package in the shop is quite a
bargain, as it offloads that work to us and you constantly have access
to the latest PHP versions whenever they're released. And you get
something that works out of the box.

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber