Upgrading to php 5.3

[Gene Steinberg]

I'm sorry that you think that a simpler tool is for "children." That's the old Mac OS versus DOS argument of the 1980s repeated all over again. We don't need to go there.

 

[DCR]

Eeh, Gene..

While I wouldn't necessarily think that Plesk/Cpanel are for children, I would surely agree with gtsupport on the command line part.

Most definitely: "Nobody should admin a server without command line skills".

I personally use Plesk for managing my domains mostly. Named/Bind config files are a big pain in the butt when handled manually. On servers that do not act as DNS servers, I use no type of panel at all. I prefer being in control myself. It eliminates one big fat layer of potential failures.

Yes, I am old enough to remember the MAC versus DOS, but it is not relevant here, since we are dealing with OS admin and not a basic user-interface. No one is saying that end-customers should have command line skills.

It is simply not possible for any add-on package, whether Plesk or Cpanel to hide the Operating System 100%. It is much to complex and it is without any financial benefit for the company developing the package to even try to hide all of it.

Hence, even if someone like the web-interface for ease of use for some or even many of the daily admin tasks, no OS administrator should be without the skills to go outside the safety of Plesk/CPanel. Too many important configuration files, log files, and admin tasks are only available that way. Whatever control panel you choose to purchase.

Personally, if I had web-sites running on a server and found out that it's admins did not have quite deep level skills at the command level, I would ditch as fast as my domains would transfer out of there. Both because I know there would be incidents where such skills are necessary, and also because someone not entering a command line would also be running default configurations of Mysql, httpd, PHP, and other services, which would suck chunks.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Regardless of your command line skills, you should be able to do most daily tasks with point and click, and that goes for software updates that aren't done automatically.

As to the rest, many hosts offer various levels of management so people can get a server without having to be thoroughly trained in the command line. Regardless, a smattering of knowledge is useful.

 

[atomicturtle]

I would add for those in environments where compliance (PCIDSS, NIST-800-53, Reg 5.71, etc) is an issue, Cpanel's approach to recompiling core packages (openssl notably) causes you to loose your certification for FIPS-140-2. The managed update approach, using tools like yum or apt are IM(not so)HO considerably superior given that you have rollbacks, 3rd party support, no vendor lockin, *remove capabilities* , etc.


I agree with you on a nice pretty web gui for it though, which is why I wrote one Its a front end to yum for plesk called atomic-yum: http://www4.atomicorp.com/channels/source/atomic-yum/ (GPLv3). PS- I'd love to see apt support built into this, if any debian/ubuntu folks want to give it a shot.

yum and apt make the features of easyapache a look like a rounding error

 

[Scy]

I believe Plesk 10 requires SiteBuilder (why is beyond me), which brings in a php5-ioncube-loader package from Plesk which only works with 'php < 5.2.0'. So yeah, Plesk seems to block using PHP 5.2+ indirectly this way...

This should be no problem, because you can upgrade the Ioncube loader too to newer one that is compatible with PHP 5.3.x.

I have done that and we have Plesk 9.5.x & Plesk 10.x environments on Debian Lenny servers working with PHP 5.3.5 and MySQL 5.1.54.

Am I not sure about other systems than Debian Lenny, but at least with our servers the upgrade of Ioncube Loader was done with the following way:

1. cd /usr/local/src/
2. mkdir ioncube
3. cd ioncube
4. wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz
(or if your system is 32-bit: wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz)
5. tar xvzf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz
6. cd ioncube
7. cp ioncube_loader_lin_5.3.so /usr/lib/php5
8. cd /usr/lib/php5
9. ls –al
10. Check that ioncube_loader_lin_5.3.so is visible in the folder. After that remove the no longer required files in in /usr/local/src/
11. pico /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/ioncube-loader.ini and edit the line:

zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2_x86_64.so

to be:

zend_extension=/usr/lib/php5/ioncube_loader_lin_5.3.so

Save and restart Apache with command:

/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng -r

Now the "php -v" should no longer give error message about incompatible Ioncube Loader.

NOTE! Considering the provided info, everything you do, you do with your own responsibility. I won't take any responsibility about broken servers etc.

Hope it works with your system too. Cheers from Finland!

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I would add for those in environments where compliance (PCIDSS, NIST-800-53, Reg 5.71, etc) is an issue, Cpanel's approach to recompiling core packages (openssl notably) causes you to loose your certification for FIPS-140-2. The managed update approach, using tools like yum or apt are IM(not so)HO considerably superior given that you have rollbacks, 3rd party support, no vendor lockin, *remove capabilities* , etc.


I agree with you on a nice pretty web gui for it though, which is why I wrote one Its a front end to yum for plesk called atomic-yum: http://www4.atomicorp.com/channels/source/atomic-yum/ (GPLv3). PS- I'd love to see apt support built into this, if any debian/ubuntu folks want to give it a shot.

yum and apt make the features of easyapache a look like a rounding error

Thanks. I will explore the front end.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

I would add for those in environments where compliance (PCIDSS, NIST-800-53, Reg 5.71, etc) is an issue, Cpanel's approach to recompiling core packages (openssl notably) causes you to loose your certification for FIPS-140-2. The managed update approach, using tools like yum or apt are IM(not so)HO considerably superior given that you have rollbacks, 3rd party support, no vendor lockin, *remove capabilities* , etc.


I agree with you on a nice pretty web gui for it though, which is why I wrote one Its a front end to yum for plesk called atomic-yum: http://www4.atomicorp.com/channels/source/atomic-yum/ (GPLv3). PS- I'd love to see apt support built into this, if any debian/ubuntu folks want to give it a shot.

yum and apt make the features of easyapache a look like a rounding error

Nice to know. But I did go to that site, and installed your atomic-yum. But I didn't see any Web GUI, in Plesk or anywhere. Where is it?

Peace,
Gene

 

[AtifQ]

Not that I hate command lines, but I have better things to do with my time. Once the initial configuration is done, and the Web host usually takes care of that, your EasyApache upgrade process is just clicks away.

Yes, Plesk has a prettier interface, but I'm surprised this capability isn't present.

In all fairness, Plesk is a powerful web deployment tool. Sure there are some basic features that cPanel offers that are redundant in Plesk, but Plesk is powerful to an extent that a user who wants to extend off a solid platform can use Plesk to do so - that's the beauty of CLI and Plesk. cPanel offers an idiot-proof GUI, and has all the snippets to make any button-lover melt on-site. If your needs don't require any complexity or simplicity, but purely ease-of-use then perhaps cPanel is a recommendation. IMHO, that is all.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

In all fairness, Plesk is a powerful web deployment tool. Sure there are some basic features that cPanel offers that are redundant in Plesk, but Plesk is powerful to an extent that a user who wants to extend off a solid platform can use Plesk to do so - that's the beauty of CLI and Plesk. cPanel offers an idiot-proof GUI, and has all the snippets to make any button-lover melt on-site. If your needs don't require any complexity or simplicity, but purely ease-of-use then perhaps cPanel is a recommendation. IMHO, that is all.

My perception, but it doesn't answer why installing that item from Atomic doesn't deliver a graphical front-end for updates in Plesk. There's no documentation other than how to install. What's the story?

Peace,
Gene

 

[atomicturtle]

Not sure I understand what you're asking here, atomic-yum is a front end on yum. Yum is the updater behind the scenes and can be configured to pull updates from various repos (to include parallels, atomic, centos, etc).

 

[Gene Steinberg]

OK, and you're not making this clear. Is atomic-yum a graphical front-end that shows up in Plesk, or what? That's the impression you conveyed.

Peace,
Gene

 

[atomicturtle]

Haha, yes thats exactly what it is. Its an open source (GPLv3) plesk module

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Haha, yes thats exactly what it is. Its an open source (GPLv3) plesk module

I installed it, but I see noting in Plesk that refer to it. What should I look for?

Peace,
Gene

 

[atomicturtle]

It might be faster to go over this in the plesk irc channel (irc.freenode.net, #plesk) or in the atomic forums. This is the last time I'll be checking in here for a few days.