We are in the process of updating our user servers from FreeBSD 6.2-RELEASE-p1 to FreeBSD 7.2-STABLE.

An operating system upgrade is a major step, taken only after careful testing, building, and rebuilding of features in the new operating system environment. As with previous upgrades, we feel that this upgrade will bring improved stability, security, and system performance. Nearly all of the supporting software packages on our servers will receive major or minor updates, as well.

The upgrade schedule is available.

Summary of New Features

• Perl is upgraded to version 5.8.9. Thousands of Perl modules have been updated and/or added. Perl 5.6 is no longer available. Perl version 5.10.1 is available as

  /usr/local/bin/perl5.10.1

• Ruby is upgraded to version 1.9.1. Hundreds of Ruby gems have been updated and/or added. Ruby version 1.8.7 is still available as

  /usr/local/bin/ruby18

• Python is upgraded to version 2.6.2. Version 2.5.2 is still available as

  /usr/local/bin/python2.5

Upgrade Notes

These notes are intended to help guide you through any changes that might be required by the upgrades to system software. If you are not sure about what to do or have any other questions, please contact us at support@pair.com and we will be glad to help.

• FrontPage server extensions are available, but will be removed in our next operating system upgrade. Please contact us at support@pair.com if you are affected by this change.

• If you are using a PHP source code decoder such as ionCube or SourceGuardian, you may need to download a new version of it. Most such source code decoders are specific to the versions of both PHP and FreeBSD (changing from 6.2 to 7.2).

• If you have copied php5.cgi from the system cgi-bin (/usr/www/cgi-bin) into your own account for use with cgiwrap, it will need to be updated after the upgrade.

  As part of the upgrade process, we will automatically make this update for all customers using our PHP 5.2.11 CGI binary. To be automatically updated, please recopy /usr/www/cgi-bin/php5.cgi to your account before your server is upgraded.

  Custom PHP compiles may require a recompilation after the upgrade.

• The older Mysql.pm Perl module (included in a Perl script with "use Mysql") is deprecated and should be replaced by use of the DBI Perl module. The basics of using DBI to access a mysql database can be seen on our Using MySQL knowledge base article.

• Customers who have custom Webalizer configuration files should remove this line, if present, before their server is upgraded:

  LogType web

  Customers who have configured Webalizer only through the Account Control Center do not need to make any changes.

• Customers who are using Movable Type 4.1 with an SQLite database may require an upgrade to Movable Type to be compatible with the new OS.

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