XF 1.5 XF 1.5.6, upgrade to PHP 7?

[PJK]

I've been suggested to upgrade to PHP 7. What's the best way to handle this from XF 1.5.6 perspective? Is there anything specific I need to do prior to upgrading PHP on the server? Thanks.

 

[Brad Padgett]

If you have cPanel you can use the built in cPanel multi-php manager to switch php versions. The easiest way to do it.

 

[PJK]

If you have cPanel you can use the built in cPanel multi-php manager to switch php versions. The easiest way to do it.

Is XF 1.5.6 compatible with PHP 7? Is there a way to check? Thanks.

 

[DarkGizmo]

Is there any reason why you're still running 1.5.6 when the latest 1.5 release is 1.5.20? 1.5.6 is very old and out of date, not to mention riddled with security risks and flaws. Why not update to the latest version of 1.5 or even XF 2.0.9? (very latest version of Xenforo as of this post)

 

[PJK]

Is there any reason why you're still running 1.5.6 when the latest 1.5 release is 1.5.20? 1.5.6 is very old and out of date, not to mention riddled with security risks and flaws. Why not update to the latest version of 1.5 or even XF 2.0.9? (very latest version of Xenforo as of this post)

I haven't upgraded mainly due to the time it takes to upgrade (and the potential ways to mess it up). The forum has tons of posts so the whole process takes me hours when you take into account the backup and restore (plus any downtime). Unless I'm mistaken and there is a quicker way. Any suggestions? Thanks.

 

[nocte]

Have you thought about security?

There were at least 2 security fixes since the release of XF 1.5.6:

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-5-18-released-includes-security-fix.144254/
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-5-10a-released-includes-security-fix.120218/

You should at least use the patches if you have not done so yet (and don't want to upgrade).

 

[PJK]

Have you thought about security?

There were at least 2 security fixes since the release of XF 1.5.6:

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-5-18-released-includes-security-fix.144254/
https://xenforo.com/community/threads/xenforo-1-5-10a-released-includes-security-fix.120218/

You should at least use the patches if you have not done so yet (and don't want to upgrade).

How do you install a patch without an upgrade? Or what's the way you guys do upgrades without taking hours? Thanks.

 

[nocte]

How do you install a patch without an upgrade?

Have you read the threads? You just need to upload files (at least for these patches).

 

[PJK]

Have you read the threads? You just need to upload files (at least for these patches).

Yes I did. The thread with the patches being uploaded over are for 1.5.10a which then leads to the question if I can overwrite these files on my 1.5.6 install. It looks like the latest install I can download on my account is 1.5.13. I'm tempted to upgrade to 2 so I can setup elastic search but need to verify the server requirements and ensure it doesn't conflict.

 

[MySiteGuy]

You should be doing a backup at least daily anyway, so the upgrade shouldn't be a problem. The only thing long about it on a big board is the same as smaller boards... the template rebuild. And that only takes a couple of minutes, at most. I've never had any issue upgrading from one 1.x version to another 1.x while the forums are live.

 

[PJK]

You should be doing a backup at least daily anyway, so the upgrade shouldn't be a problem. The only thing long about it on a big board is the same as smaller boards... the template rebuild. And that only takes a couple of minutes, at most. I've never had any issue upgrading from one 1.x version to another 1.x while the forums are live.

How are you automating your backups? Links are appreciated. Thanks.

 

[MySiteGuy]

For the database, I use mydumper, running it once per day through a cron job: https://github.com/maxbube/mydumper - mydumper has an advantage over mysqldump because it dumps several tables in parallel and can complete a backup in a fraction of the time.

For files, I use rsnapshot. It takes a snapshot of new/changed files every 4 hours, daily, weekly and monthly. It automatically rotates these so there are only 6 daily snapshots, 4 weekly and 3 monthly. It uses hardlinks between files so duplicate files between each snapshot do not take up more space. This gives me a set of local backups. http://rsnapshot.org/

Every morning, the rsnapshot and mysqldumper files are synced up to a business Google drive account (unlimited storage costs me $9/month) using rclone: https://rclone.org/ - it can backup to many different cloud services, sftp, and more. I also have rsnapshot sftp sync a copy of the backup files to a computer in my local office.