Upgrading php?

rickycen · 09-01-2005, 10:26 PM

Hello everybody,

I am currently using a (rented) Linux (DeBain with cPanel) server, for a temporary (html) website. I have been looking into php, and buying a php template.
Currently the server has php 4.3.10 installed. This is what the compamy had on it. I have figured out some things on it, but not nearly what I need to know.
I wanted to upgrade the php to a newer version >= 6.5.

How do I get the newer version installed? Through ftp and cpanel?

I appreciate any help I can get, my linux knowledge is extremely limited. Unfortunately, I can't just pop a CD in, and let it go to work!

Thanks for any input ahead of time,

Rick

btmiller · 09-01-2005, 11:26 PM

The latest version of PHP is 5.0-something, so you're going to have to wait awhile for 6.5

. Do you have shell access to the server (i.e. can you SSH to it)? If so you can always download the newest PHP version, compile it and install it (read the guides here for how to install from source). Be aware that some applications make not work correctly with PHP 5 since it has updated the language a lot. You might consider staying with the latest PHP 4 release -- you can find more info on www.php.net .

rickycen · 09-02-2005, 06:06 AM

Thank you for the input. I will have to check on the SSH, as I don't even know what that is?
As for my 6.5 comment? That's why it seems a bit confusing. I have seen versions listed up to 7.8? Some of the template ads claimed, the template required php 6.5 or newer?
Once again thank you very much for the advice and info.

Rick

vtbludgeon · 09-02-2005, 09:18 AM

it sounds like you have php version numbers confused with version numbers for some other application. You can find out what the latest versions are at php.net. Believe me, anyone who tells you some app requires PHP 6.5 is pulling your leg.

if yours is a dedicated server, you can probably install whatever you please, I would imagine (don't know from experience, being a downscale shared server kind of guy). But if you don't know, e.g., what SSH is, then compiling PHP 5 from source will probably be more of an adventure than you would enjoy. But if you want to have a wack at it, try it on a non-production machine first. I daresay there are plenty of folks here who have built PHP just a few times

and can help with your questions. And yes, make sure your PHP apps support PHP 5. A lot of PHP 5 code will not even parse on PHP 4 -- that is, PHP 5 has a wider vocabulary than PHP 4, stuff that PHP 4 does not understand.

if you really need PHP 5, perhaps your hosting company can set it up for you for a nominal fee (again, speculation on my part).

rickycen · 09-02-2005, 08:24 PM

Well from the input I have gotten, I have clearly misunderstood some things from some of the other sites. Thank You immensly for the updates. I will stick with what I have for now. It is a dedicated server, I think? I have 500MB of space to run the site on.

THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!

Rick