Adding PHP module

I'll be recompiling PHP this afternoon to add a needed module, and Apache (the web server) will need to be rebooted after that's done. The version will not change and any modules that are currently there will stay that way, I'm just adding one that's needed for the helpdesk ticket system.

In all likelihood none of this will be noticed, but if you happen to hit the server at just the right time as it's rebooting, the page may temporarily time out. It only takes the server a few minutes to recover from a reboot, and most web hosts never tell you before a server reboot, but we try to keep clients and users as informed as possible.

The entire process should take no more than 30 minutes (the server reboot less than 5), and when it's done I'll update this post.

2:53pm: Alrighty then...since that went so well, I think I'll re-recompile PHP to upgrade to a newer, stable version. There's been a long list of bug fixes and security updates in the last few versions, and as far as I can tell version 4.4.6 is compatible with everything we have on the server and shouldn't create any conflicts. If any issues arise I can downgrade back to the current version of 4.4.3.

As always, I'll update this post when the work is done.

4:25pm: And we're done. We are now running PHP version 4.4.6, and while I was at it I installed Zend PHP Optimizer, version 3.2.8. Zend optimizes the way PHP pages are loaded which means any PHP pages on the website should load (display) faster.

This concludes our "Upgrade Update", we now return you to your regularly scheduled Friday-before-a-holiday-weekend, already in progress.