PHP Upgrade to 5

[John]

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

[meez]

On Jul 23, 4:37*pm, John <67vnue6o@knwfvwrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

It all depends on what you are using it for. For instance I usually
use PHP, MYSQL and Apache and usually I find that there are certain
versions of PHP has problems with Certain versions of MYSQL (But
usually I always find some sort of tweak to solve it). There are also
issues with certain versins of apache. Some times it takes alot of
tweeking to find the most compatible versions that wiil suit your web
application.

So your web tecky might have a point (depending on what security
settings he has in place to make the server secure). These settings
may not work effectivly with the newer versions of PHP.

[Curtis]

John wrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

PHP4 has been discontinued and is no longer supported, so it is better
to work on moving than staying on PHP4. Your sys admin is going to
have to switch eventually.

The PHP manual has information on migrating from PHP4 to PHP5:
<URL:http://php.net/manual/en/migration5.php>. So far, I haven't had
any problems with my PHP4 scripts breaking on PHP5. It's really hard
to say how right your sys admin is, unless you can get some specifics
out of him. Maybe he has some really poorly coded scripts installed,
who knows.

--
Curtis (http://dyersweb.com)

[Michael Fesser]

..oO(John)

>Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

The problems will arise with PHP 4 if you don't upgrade.

A simple upgrade alone isn't worth £500, but if your current system
requires a lot of modifications to run on PHP 5, then you might have to
spend some money. But it has to be done.

>Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth.

Upgrading is a must! PHP 4 is dead, the support for it will finally end
in two weeks - there will be no more security fixes!

>What are the main issues we can expect?

Most scripts written for PHP 4 will run without any problems on PHP 5.
There are only small incompatibilities, which will mostly arise from
poorly written code (for example register_globals). But such things can
be considered bugs and should be fixed as soon as possible.

Micha

[J.O. Aho]

John wrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

If your server is running PHP4, then it's time to upgrade the Linux
distribution on it too, as it's more than likely that the distribution has
ended it's support of that version of Linux.

It can be good to look a bit on a distribution that has an simple way to
upgrade to a new version every time they release a new one (which don't
require someone to go and do a upgrade with a CD/DVD).

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

If you are using OOP in your PHP4 code, then there may be some problems with
your scripts and they may need to be upgraded, due the differences between
php4 and php5. There are some other differences which also affects other
functions that can cause troubles.
If he will do the fixes on the PHP scripts too, then it may be worth for a
years support, but not next year, as he will not have anything serious to do.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

If you can ensure that the code you written works on PHP5, then the guy is
only worth the money you think is right for compiling php5 for your current
distribution, (running a phpinfo() you get all the options that you need, you
may need to install the devel packages for the stuff you compile into php5 and
then more or less run "make && make install" and then restart the apache server).

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

As PHP4 has been discontinued for 7 months and 25 days, it's a good idea to
move ahead, so you won't one day sit there with a serious security bug that
won't be fixed, but you will have the same problem with the rest of the server
software (it could be compared with you running a microsoft server with
microsoft windows 3.11, how well supported do you think it is by microsft?)
--

//Aho

[Gordon]

On Jul 23, 4:37 pm, John <67vnue6o@knwfvwrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

If (and that's a big if) there is a significant amount of PHP code
running on the system that would require modification to work properly
under PHP 5 then there might be some justification for a one off fee
to fix or replace it (though on the whole code that doesn't work in
PHP 5 doesn't work because it's relying on features that have been
depreciated for a long time, such as $_HTTP_*_VARS and should probably
be fixed anyway for security reasons).

But the yearly charge? I can't see how he can possibly justify that,
once problems have been fixed they have a nasty habit of staying
fixed. Once the upgrade work has been done there's nothing in
particular you have to do with PHP 5 to keep it running that you
didn't have to do with PHP 4.

[John]

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:37:09 +0100, John <67vnue6o@knwfvwrote:

>Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for some great info and
opinions. It was just what we needed.

We will be able to go back now with confidence to find out what is
going on.

--
John

[Jerry Stuckle]

John wrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

A little late, but I've been having some system problems here.

That's ridiculous. He just doesn't want to spend the time to upgrade.
It doesn't cost any more to support PHP 5 than it did PHP4.

Now - there is a *slight* chance *some* of your scripts may need
modification. If so, that's fine - you should modify the scripts or pay
someone to do it.

But $500/yr extra to support PHP5 (especially when PHP4 is no longer
supported)? That's an immediate red flag. Dump the bum. You can get
(and deserve) better.

\
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
js*******@attglobal.net
==================

[J.O. Aho]

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

John wrote:

>Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

A little late, but I've been having some system problems here.

That's ridiculous. He just doesn't want to spend the time to upgrade.
It doesn't cost any more to support PHP 5 than it did PHP4.

I believe the Linux installation is outdated and as there won't be any new
binary PHP packages from the distribution, he will have to compile it from
scratch and keep track of bugs in PHP to know when it's time to upgrade again,
at the same time he may need to upgrade other packages which he has to compile
from scratch to make PHP5 to compile... It's far better the OP would see to
getting the whole system updated to a recent version of Linux where he will
get PHP5 for free.

But $500/yr extra to support PHP5 (especially when PHP4 is no longer
supported)? That's an immediate red flag. Dump the bum. You can get
(and deserve) better.

I completely agree with you on that
--

//Aho

[John]

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:55:36 -0400, Jerry Stuckle
<js*******@attglobal.netwrote:

>John wrote:

>Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

A little late, but I've been having some system problems here.

That's ridiculous. He just doesn't want to spend the time to upgrade.
It doesn't cost any more to support PHP 5 than it did PHP4.

Now - there is a *slight* chance *some* of your scripts may need
modification. If so, that's fine - you should modify the scripts or pay
someone to do it.

But $500/yr extra to support PHP5 (especially when PHP4 is no longer
supported)? That's an immediate red flag. Dump the bum. You can get
(and deserve) better.

\

Thanks Jerry

[Gordon]

On Jul 25, 2:55 am, Jerry Stuckle <[e-mail]:

John wrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

A little late, but I've been having some system problems here.

That's ridiculous. He just doesn't want to spend the time to upgrade.
It doesn't cost any more to support PHP 5 than it did PHP4.

Now - there is a *slight* chance *some* of your scripts may need
modification. If so, that's fine - you should modify the scripts or pay
someone to do it.

But $500/yr extra to support PHP5 (especially when PHP4 is no longer
supported)? That's an immediate red flag. Dump the bum. You can get
(and deserve) better.

\
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
[e-mail]
==================

This is one of the rare occasions where I completely agree with
Jerry. If he's offering to rewrite any PHP scripts that might break
as a result of the upgrade then a one off upgrade fee might be
justifiable. If he insists on the yearly fee then perhaps it might be
time to politely suggest just where he can shove his yearly fee and
find somebody else to run your server.

[C.]

On Jul 25, 7:47 am, "J.O. Aho" <[e-mail]:

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

John wrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

A little late, but I've been having some system problems here.

That's ridiculous. He just doesn't want to spend the time to upgrade.
It doesn't cost any more to support PHP 5 than it did PHP4.

I believe the Linux installation is outdated and as there won't be any new
binary PHP packages from the distribution, he will have to compile it from
scratch and keep track of bugs in PHP to know when it's time to upgrade again,
at the same time he may need to upgrade other packages which he has to compile
from scratch to make PHP5 to compile... It's far better the OP would see to
getting the whole system updated to a recent version of Linux where he will
get PHP5 for free.

But $500/yr extra to support PHP5 (especially when PHP4 is no longer
supported)? That's an immediate red flag. Dump the bum. You can get
(and deserve) better.

I completely agree with you on that

--

//Aho

I agree with Jerry - if he's agreeing to fix lots of source code then
the fee is justifiable for the migration (may even be a bargain!) -
but not the ongoing charge. If your Linux distro is out of support
then you should really think about upgrading that too. Get some
quotes.

C.

[Tree*Rat]

John <67vnue6o@knwfvwrote in news:c0ke84hqo4pdolv5ns1fdt0bkeds7gtsmq@
4ax.com:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

Asking anyone if they had problems is like saying will I get a cold this
winter. I have upgraded a few systems with no problems at all, but that
doesn't mean the next one I do will be the same.

Maybe a crystal ball can tell you the future?

[Ian Pawson]

John wrote:

Our technical guy says that our linux server is running PHP 4. I
thought we were running 5 already.

He says he wants to charge us £500 a year to install and support it
because it is a lot of work, and the problems it will create on our
current systems are huge etc.

Now I installed 5 on my PC at home running Apache without any problems
and develop sites locally and then upload to the server (running 4). I
have never had a problem with compatibility issues.

Does anyone have any experience of moving from 4 to 5 and was it more
hassle than it was worth. What are the main issues we can expect?

Thanks John

When I upgraded I also took the opportunity to move to mysqli and so
start the overall move to oop. Bit of a steep learning curve, but I
think that the effort was worth it.