Upgrading PHP

[Damien]

Hi to all,
Our server is running a version of PHP that is getting a bit old
(4.1.2). We'd like to take advantage of some of the functions &
stability of subsequent versions.

How can I upgrade easy & clean ? I'd like to avoid rebooting the WinNT
server. As far as I remember, the installshield asks to reboot, right ?

Can I "just" extract the binary in the directory, overwrite the PHP.ini
& restart the IIS service ?

Thanks a lot in advance !
Damien

[Michael Austin]

Damien wrote:

Hi to all,
Our server is running a version of PHP that is getting a bit old
(4.1.2). We'd like to take advantage of some of the functions &
stability of subsequent versions.

How can I upgrade easy & clean ? I'd like to avoid rebooting the WinNT
server. As far as I remember, the installshield asks to reboot, right ?

Can I "just" extract the binary in the directory, overwrite the PHP.ini
& restart the IIS service ?

Thanks a lot in advance !
Damien

Because of the way MS does stuff, I don't think there is going to be any
way around it... With Windows there are way too many things that could
go wrong - regedits, files in the wrong directory - not being able to
replace a file because windows has it locked - even if it is not in
use... the list goes on.

My experience has always been to follow the prescribed method or risk
things just not working right... pick some off-hours time, shut it down,
do the upgrade and reboot...

Thanks to MS, reboot is the only option! Now, if you were on Unix/Linux
or something like OpenVMS, you wouldn't have those problems, but I would
still do the upgrade during "off-hours" just in case something goes
wrong. Make sure you backup your system prior to the upgrade just in
case something goes really wrong. Get a test system and actually
practice the upgrade.

Michael Austin

[Damien]

Michael Austin a écrit :

Because of the way MS does stuff, I don't think there is going to be any
way around it... With Windows there are way too many things that could
go wrong - regedits, files in the wrong directory - not being able to
replace a file because windows has it locked - even if it is not in
use... the list goes on.
:( d'oh... I kept hoping there was a way around... Well, I guess that's
life ;). Me and the compter service admin are in for an late-quit this
week ;)

My experience has always been to follow the prescribed method or risk
things just not working right... <snip>
Mine too, but well, sometimes fiddling "just works".
Thanks to MS, reboot is the only option! Now, if you were on Unix/Linux
or something like OpenVMS, you wouldn't have those problems, but I would
still do the upgrade during "off-hours" just in case something goes
wrong.

<snip>
I know :) . But in the company I work for (small, family driven), the
"jet set" doesn't want to hear about Linux. They are too afraid
something goes wrong and we have to hire several technicians to fix things.
Anyway, thanks for the fast input !
Damien

[Michael Austin]

Damien wrote:

Michael Austin a écrit :

Because of the way MS does stuff, I don't think there is going to be
any way around it... With Windows there are way too many things that
could go wrong - regedits, files in the wrong directory - not being
able to replace a file because windows has it locked - even if it is
not in use... the list goes on.

:( d'oh... I kept hoping there was a way around... Well, I guess that's
life ;). Me and the compter service admin are in for an late-quit this
week ;)

My experience has always been to follow the prescribed method or risk
things just not working right...

<snip>
Mine too, but well, sometimes fiddling "just works".

Thanks to MS, reboot is the only option! Now, if you were on
Unix/Linux or something like OpenVMS, you wouldn't have those
problems, but I would still do the upgrade during "off-hours" just in
case something goes wrong.

<snip>
I know :) . But in the company I work for (small, family driven), the
"jet set" doesn't want to hear about Linux. They are too afraid
something goes wrong and we have to hire several technicians to fix things.

Yeah, that may be true, but they would still spend less than they are
now by not having to worry about the latest worm that will shut them
down for days.... -which is why I use OpenVMS -- it is NOT
Linux/Unix!!! And is virtually hack proof.. It may be a bit more
expensive than M$, but what do you want? cheap or be hacked every other
week???

true story:
At DEFCON9 (hackers convention in Las Vegas every year with > 10K
attendees) an OpenVMS system was entered into the contest to see who
could hack what... the only system on the floor not hacked was the
OpenVMS system. The following year, the DEFCON rules changed so that
only "their" Linux kernel on Intel/AMD chips could be used.

Anyway, thanks for the fast input !
Damien

Michael Austin

[Damien]

Michael Austin a écrit :
<snip>

I know :) . But in the company I work for (small, family driven), the
"jet set" doesn't want to hear about Linux. They are too afraid
something goes wrong and we have to hire several technicians to fix
things.

Yeah, that may be true, but they would still spend less than they are
now by not having to worry about the latest worm that will shut them
down for days.... -which is why I use OpenVMS -- it is NOT
Linux/Unix!!! And is virtually hack proof.. It may be a bit more
expensive than M$, but what do you want? cheap or be hacked every other
week???

<OT>
<sigh>... ;) what can I say...</sigh>Anyway, surpisingly, we have not
been hakced yet. Just 1 or 2 viruses in the last 24 months. I guess ou
Internet Service Provider does a good job.
</OT
true story:
At DEFCON9 (hackers convention in Las Vegas every year with > 10K
attendees) an OpenVMS system was entered into the contest to see who
could hack what... the only system on the floor not hacked was the
OpenVMS system. The following year, the DEFCON rules changed so that
only "their" Linux kernel on Intel/AMD chips could be used.

:o)

Thanks again !
Damien
<snip>

[Andrzej Bednarczyk]

hi,

just some hint in thema of security: if the server your are talking about is
the one from which you are posting (bidule.net) then it's not really wise
to give details that on such server there is an old pho installation
working.
php in version 4.1.x had some bugs which can easily be used to hack a server
on which the site is running. giving such informations in a plain text on
newsgroups is just what some people are searching for... let's not getting
them too much fun :)

cheers
a.

Hi to all,
Our server is running a version of PHP that is getting a bit old
(4.1.2). We'd like to take advantage of some of the functions &
stability of subsequent versions.

How can I upgrade easy & clean ? I'd like to avoid rebooting the WinNT
server. As far as I remember, the installshield asks to reboot, right ?

Can I "just" extract the binary in the directory, overwrite the PHP.ini
& restart the IIS service ?

Thanks a lot in advance !
Damien

[Damien]

Andrzej Bednarczyk a écrit :

hi,

just some hint in thema of security: if the server your are talking about is
the one from which you are posting (bidule.net) then it's not really wise
to give details that on such server there is an old pho installation
working.
php in version 4.1.x had some bugs which can easily be used to hack a server
on which the site is running. giving such informations in a plain text on
newsgroups is just what some people are searching for... let's not getting
them too much fun :)

cheers
a.

Thanks for the tip... But I got tired of giving my real email adresse in
newsgroups after I reached 20 spams a day. ;o)

Actually, "truc" and "bidule" in French mean something like "stuff",
"thingy" or "whatchamacallit". I somehow got the hint that
"my**********@SPAMmyserver.com would not be efficient for long.

Anyway, the server I'm speaking of is intranet-only. I would not dare
set up myself a PHP+MySQL+IIS server <shudders>. After all, I've only
been a newbie for 3 years ;o) .

Thanks for the info !

Cheers,
Damien
---
"I asked Dad if I was gifted when I was born.
He said they would certainly not have paid for me."
Calvin & Hobbes (B. Watterson)