freebsd

One of my older hosting servers runs into space issues constantly. And most of the time it’s a 24 GB log file (error_log) from a really old Joomla-based website. Why it gets so huge? Well, when I tail the logfile, I see messages about functions being deprecated in PHP, warnings, notices and a whole lot more literally racing by. I’m not sure if Joomla changed in recent years, but most of the code-base is a great example of how PHP applications should not be build....

I noticed that archivers/pecl-phar vanished from the ports tree on one of my FreeBSD servers. Problem? Reasons to remove the port were: the port is unmaintained the port was based on the outdated phar extension from pecl phar (in pecl) contains open security issues The simple solution is to create a new port which of course will use the phar which is bundled in PHP’s core. And I will get to that (but feel free to beat me at it ;-))....

So, every once in a while I find myself in need of trying out newer, maybe, not-yet-released features in PHP. For example, recently, I wanted to test RoundCube PHP6 — this is how I did it. On a side note, the same setup would also work for testing code with previous versions of PHP. Toolbox I used nginx and the PHP source with a little bit of ./configure and make — for kicks!...

I’m a big fan of capistrano for my deployment and generally also prefer the command line (vs. nifty web interfaces). Recently, I realized that it would be better to give up some responsibility to others on a project and it seems the easiest in terms of capistrano is webistrano — by the Berlin-based Peritor. Gimme a port! Because FreeBSD is and always will be my favorite operating system, I created a small port for webistrano on FreeBSD....

Since part one and two were uber-successful, here’s an update on my Zend Framework PHP performance situation. I’ve also had this post sitting around since beginning of May and I figured if I don’t post it now, I never will. Disclaimer: All numbers (aka pseudo benchmarks) were not taken on a full moon and are (of course) very relative to our server hardware (e.g. DELL 1950, 8 GB RAM) and environment....