Just about everything updated (including the site)
September 22, 2009 by Jason · 90 Comments
Alright, just about every package in the repo was just updated. Some significantly, others not so much, but the ones people are likely to care about are there. MySQL is now up to 5.0.84, PHP is up to 5.2.11, and httpd is up to 2.2.13.
In addition to the package updates, I also included php-memcache for connecting to a memcached server and a choice of PHP accelerators as these were both things that many people were requesting. You can now choose between php-xcache, php-apc, and php-eaccelerator (all of which conflict so don't try and force more than one to install). I've not extensively tested the latter two as I personally use xcache, so someone will have to let me know if I should change something.
Lastly, the site itself has been updated to the newest release of WordPress, I've ripped out a bunch of plugins, added a few new ones, and I've installed a new skin. I'll be tweaking everything as time goes on so things may be moving about and features may break from time to time. If you notice anything flaky then please use the comment form on the About page.
Upgrading to PHP 5.2.4 on RHEL and CentOS
September 5, 2007 by Jason · 70 Comments
Well, it's been 3 months since the last release of PHP 5.2 but 5.2.4 is finally here. Unlike the earlier releases of PHP 5.2 which have included both performance/memory optimizations as well as fixes for critical bugs (security issues and otherwise), this release is aimed at improving the overall stability of the 5.2 release chain (no doubt aiming to improve the image of PHP 5.2 with 4.4 being discontinued at the end of the year) by fixing more than 120 small bugs, as well as taking the opportunity to fix a few low-level security holes.
The PHP development team didn't slap a "0mg!!! j00 m|_|$7 |_|pd473 j00r php 0r 3l$3 j00 \/\/1ll b3 h4ck3d!!!" tag on this one but stability is always a good thing so I would recommend that all of my readers upgrade when they get a chance. Really though, since I do all the work, do you really have an excuse NOT to update?
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apr, apr-util, & pcre Updated
March 20, 2007 by Jason · 6 Comments
The files in my yum repository (32- and 64-bit) have been updated to the newest available versions of 'apr' (1.2.8), 'apr-util' (1.2.8), and 'pcre' (7.0). 'httpd' has also been rebuilt to take advantage of the newer versions. I would suggest that all users apply these updates.
Announcing the Utter Ramblings EL4 repository
March 14, 2007 by Jason · 33 Comments
If you're a regular reader of the site, you may have noticed the "Yum Repository" link at the top of the page. If so, congratulations, you're one of the first to try out a new service I'm offering on this site.
As it appears, most of the posts on this blog thus far have been how-to's on updating your RHEL & CentOS servers to use the newest versions of httpd, PHP, and MySQL. I'm still planning on creating those articles as needed, but only the source packages will be linked to the page. Binary releases for i386 (x86-64 coming soon) will now be available for easy updating through my brand new yum repository (and yes, before you ask, 'up2date' can read a yum repo).
I'm hoping that this will cut down on not only the effort required to update your systems, but also on the possible glitches that can come from updating a complex set of packages like PHP (where, with prior provided methods, you'd need to type out all of the file names that you wanted to install all at once, otherwise you'd have dependency issues with upgrading from an earlier release).
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Upgrading Apache httpd on RHEL and CentOS
November 24, 2006 by Jason · 62 Comments
By popular request, I've decided to write a How-To on upgrading your RHEL or CentOS 4 system from httpd 2.0.52 to 2.2.3. I'm going to issue a warning upfront though, this is NOT a simple src.rpm rebuild like the PHP upgrade how-to that I wrote. Upgrading httpd requires filling a couple dependencies, building httpd, and then rebuilding everything that depends on httpd. For most people, that means just PHP. For some sites, that may include mod_perl, mod_python, etc.
If you're using some kind of management panel like Plesk, CPanel, etc. then DO NOT follow these instructions as you will break your server. In fact, if you have a separate development environment (like an OpenVZ VPS or a separate server) then I'd suggest using that because the build process actually requires you to remove your current copy of httpd. In any case, if you're still interested, keep reading.
To complete this upgrade you're going to need 3 things. First, you'll need 'root' access to your server. Without it, even if you can build the RPMs, you won't be able to install them. Second, you're going to need to install some dependencies to meet the build requirements. Finally, you're going to need to get the src.rpm files for httpd, apr, apr-util, and pcre from FC6.
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