mmmm LAMP Chops...

I have been planning to re-cook the production server, as it was losing it's taste to the current trend, php 4's lifespan will eventually die by the end of this year, and i want to know what this new PHP and MySQL ingredient would taste like, XML, OOP and Stored Procedures). So, let's get to the basics:

first of all, let's see what should be improved in our reagents(as what ultima 4 citizens refer to ingredients)

REAGENTS:
LAMP - is a mix of Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP, the perfect blend to serve our opensource dishes

	currently...	should be...
LINUX	RHEL4(Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4)	as is, this is pretty stable enough to satisfy our appetite
APACHE	2.0	same as above
MySQL	4.1.2	5(delicious features are all in here)
PHP	4.3.9	5.2(mouth watering additions, click here)

hosted Web applications, the judges and the critics have come in the house to get served, may it be home-made(in-house) or canned and sealed with freshness(3rd party apps). Will they be delighted with your dishes, or will vomit in disgust?

Disclaimer:
Now, before you do anything stupid to your production server, do practice it first on your own server(it would be best to have at least the exact replica of the production server, as you will be simulating the upgrading process), devise a plan, contingencies etc... etc...

So, here's my plan:

1. Have the server up and running, let our guests(web apps) be ready and serve them the old recipe. Place the apps to your web document folder and import the whole database dump that was taken from the production server.
2. Pick the freshest stable releases of PHP and MySQL as they may have applied the best pesticide they can find to remove those pesky bugs.
3. Take a good look at our current versions, as you may be missing them. Look for the best guide on the net on how to upgrade php and mysql. I have found this for a start, but a more detailed guide would help a lot.
4. Have your web-apps taste your server. Do they like it? otherwise you will have to convince them by tickling their codes. Play around with PHP.INI or INI_SET and see if they still dislike your taste.
5. For third party applications, check if they have their current stable releases that supports the current versions being installed.
Here are some of those critical applications:
- Plesk(the heart of the server, although it is the web version)
- Horde(some people still think web mail is cooler than having a mail client)
- SquirrelMail(same with horde)
- PHPMyAdmin(come on! i know it is much more practical to use this than the console version, have the geek inside of you to take a rest)
- CMS(Drupal, Joomla, Mambo etc...)
- Forums(PHPBB, VBulletin, SMF etc...)
- Blogs(Wordpress, etc...)
6. Contingency! if all else fails, learn how to downgrade. After all the efforts you have exerted, there will be times that we have to abort the operation, and yes, this will also save your skinny a**.

Ready to Serve

For the production part, I will then have to schedule which should be the most appropriate day to upgrade the server, as we may not want to disrupt their web plate. Check the timezone and schedule it when most of the clients are asleep, so that they won't even notice if their website has gone crazy. Also, compose a not so pathetic announcement on when should the scheduled upgrading should happen. Just indicate what should be the possibilities that might happen during migration. But don't sound too pathetic, like really expecting something bad would happen.

That's it! That's my plan. I really hope it works. Any comments/suggestions are welcome. I will just keep my hopes high and wish myself good karma. Thanks y'all!

---

Posted Dec 04 2007, 09:22 PM by bos_tsip