PHP5 not supported by Plusnet

If anyone thinking of migrating to Plusnet is intending to use their hosting and use PHP on the CGI servers they should bear in mind that at present Plusnet do not have PHP 5 available. As an increasing number of packages require PHP5 this may be an issue.

What is more worrying is that they have (in spite of continuous pressure by the Usergroup for the last year) not published any plans for when PHP 5 may be available. On php.net it says:

In reply to:

---

PHP 4 end of life announcement [13-Jul-2007]

Today it is exactly three years ago since PHP 5 has been released. In those three years it has seen many improvements over PHP 4. PHP 5 is fast, stable & production-ready and as PHP 6 is on the way, PHP 4 will be discontinued.

The PHP development team hereby announces that support for PHP 4 will continue until the end of this year only. After 2007-12-31 there will be no more releases of PHP 4.4. We will continue to make critical security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08. Please use the rest of this year to make your application suitable to run on PHP 5.

---

This means that from August 8th php 4 will be totally unsupported. If Plusnet are intending to build a new platform including php5 (and they have said they cannot add php5 to the current platform) I cannot see this being properly designed, built tested and implemented by August. I just hope this isn't going to be another Plusnet rushed (botched?) job.

Edited by jelv (Tue 11-Mar-08 11:55:58)

Hi John,

I'm just wondering, did you ever get my PM (Sent about 3 weeks ago) where I asked for your input on the best way for us to approach this problem?

Fundamentally, our issue with the change to PHP5 revolves around the pain it would cause to existing customers - That is significant and I don't think would make us very popular. We do have a plan to implement an improved hosting platform, although that hasn't advanced as far as I would like at this stage. For various reasons I'm not going to go into detail on that in public at this point, but if you would like to get involved in helping us solve this issue I for one would be very grateful for your input.

Kind Regards,

Ian

Just to add to Ian's comments, our sister company PAYH faces a similar predicament. Plans are underway however to bring this platform up to date to allow full support of PHP5. I've no confirmed timescales as yet but I'd reckon on a month or two at least.

Kind Rgds,

In reply to:

---

We will continue to make critical security fixes available on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08.

---

I would have thought the lesson regarding out of date software would have been learned by now

In reply to:

---

case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08

---

Is this in deference to princess Beatrice's 20th birthday???

But, more seriously... Is it not possible to setup a new server with PHP5 and advise existing customers that they have 6 months to move to the new platform? Or maybe you could run the 2 in parallel and if anyone is still running on unpatched PHP then it is their issue if anything goes wrong? Run parallel for 2 years (with reducing support as time moves on) and then shut the old server down.

There's only so long you can keep running old server software. The question is how far to go in informing people that the server will be going end of life.

In reply to:

---

The question is how far to go in informing people that the server will be going end of life.

---

Bearing in mind some customers have "opted out" and therefore will never get to know

Odd, my hosting company managed it without significant "pain".

They installed php5 in parallel - let people enable it on an opt-in basis via .htaccess so they could test their scripts etc. They then made PHP5 the default, but still let people revert to PHP4 via .htaccess before finally removing PHP4.

All in all a very smooth exercise.

Ian,

I have replied to your PM this morning.

What is clear is that plans are at such an early stage that it's not really fair to call them plans! Plusnet are not going to have a replacement platform available before the August date when support for PHP 4 totally ceases.

I am not at all convinced of the pain that people would experience in transferring to PHP 5. I've read plenty of posts in various forums about other ISP's/hosting companies who have achieved this without problem by having both PHP 4 and 5 available controlled by htaccess.

"What is more worrying is that they have (in spite of continuous pressure by the Usergroup for the last year) not published any plans for when PHP 5 may be available."

It's shocking that the usergroup have so little influence over something that is of fundamental importance to the userbase. Is it that the usergroup is ineffective in putting its arguments forward or is it that BT PN just don't listen?

It's neither Channel, and I think you know that already.

Let me go away and see where the networks guys are on finding practical workaround to the technical issues that were highlighted when this was discussed before, and we can take it from there.

As I say, I think the initial premise of the thread is a little misplaced because the plans around this have been developed somewhat further than has been suggested, and we have no intention of putting the platform at any element of risk from out of date software.

Ian

In reply to:

---

As I say, I think the initial premise of the thread is a little misplaced because the plans around this have been developed somewhat further than has been suggested, and we have no intention of putting the platform at any element of risk from out of date software.

---

PHP 4 is already out of date as support ceased at the end of last year. It's critical security fixes only on a case-by-case basis until 2008-08-08.

I chose my words carefully and I don't think anything I said was inaccurate. I said:

In reply to:

---

If anyone thinking of migrating to Plusnet is intending to use their hosting and use PHP on the CGI servers they should bear in mind that at present Plusnet do not have PHP 5 available. As an increasing number of packages require PHP5 this may be an issue.

What is more worrying is that they have (<snip>) not published any plans for when PHP 5 may be available.

---

I have highlighted the pertinent facts - both are true - although I suspect I will have bounced you in to doing something about the second RSN.

These two reason are perfect examples of why I moved my hosting elsewhere. My current host announced the PHP EOL to their customers July last year and have dealt with the issue over the 8 months to February (When they made the switch). PlusNet appear to have stuck their heads in the sand until the last minute ....

I could be talking rubbish (wouldn't be the first time) but I believe most providers (it could be all if it is the only way) offer both PHP4 and PHP5 at the same time by running one version natively - don't know the technical term - and the other in CGI mode. My hunch is PN only offer PHP in CGI mode for some 'security' reasons made when the servers where last redesigned. If this is the case then simply bolting PHP5 on top may not be possible.

The best way I can see would be similar to how the CGI and CCGI servers ran concurrently for a while. Setup new servers running PHP5 and then after a few months turn off the PHP4 based servers.
If I was PN I would also take this time to improve the hosting platform and make it more integrated. Every other host I have used have had PHP, Perl and std HTML served from the same box, and in many cases SQL too. They could also introduce a better customer control panel (something like CPanel) at the same time.

If Plusnet are using Plesk which I remember seeing somewhere, there is an option to run sites on PHP4 or PHP5 and providing the sites are compatible, normally just a case of choosing which version in the control panel per account.

Cpanel does the same but I think this needs PHP running in different modes.

The standard PN hosting that comes with accounts doesn't use any real control panels IIRC. Its on PAYH which uses a true control panel (Plesk, Cpanel etc).

In all fairness to the customers, if they are using PHP then surely they themselves would check to see if the latest version etc. As for Plusnet, its an area they really need to keep up to date on, PHP4 is years old and its not as if the announcement of end of life has only just happened.

PHP 4 end of life announcement
[13-Jul-2007]

Today it is exactly three years ago since PHP 5 has been released. In those three years it has seen many improvements over PHP 4. PHP 5 is fast, stable & production-ready and as PHP 6 is on the way, PHP 4 will be discontinued.

We don't run Plesk on the main platform, just on the PAYH product which was originally one we acquired from Parbin (along with Metronet). We run a hardened OS based on Debian, with a significantly locked down Kernel. That's fundamentally why the same solution other providers have implemented won't work for us.

As I say, it's not a problem that's being ignored. It's just one for which there is no simple fix. We've had a massive overhaul of our hosting provision planned for years, and I'm certain we will do that. The question is about when, and how we can find a work-around to fix this issue on the current platform at the same time as continuing development on our next generation hosting service.

Ian

Hi Ian

I would write to all your customers on your platform on PHP4 and tell them the facts.

ie PHP4 is old and decrepit (like Don) and you are going to change it over and give them a deadline for when you are changing over. F2S have done this and it seemed to work on the whole.

Of course not everyone's website will be compatible but in all honesty that ain't your problem. If people don't keep upto date on technology or standards etc you can't hold their hands.

I bet you a hundred quid, most of your hosted sites are just HTML anyway. Those who have the knowledge to use PHP enabled programs should be fine in all honesty.

Just make sure you tell people on what to do and give them notice.

In reply to:

---

I bet you a hundred quid, most of your hosted sites are just HTML anyway

---

In that case they are better off using the homepages servers and not the CGI servers (where PHP is available). Only those needing PHP should really be hosting their websites away from the CGI servers