We’re happy to announce that we’ve upgraded phpMyAdmin to version 3.5.6, and over the next few weeks we’ll be upgrading our shared webservers to the latest version of Apache 2.4.3, with support for PHP 5.4 rolled in.

What do these upgrades mean for my website, and what action do I need to take?

Don’t worry, you don’t need to do anything, and your website will continue to work as normal. The default version won’t change, so you won’t need to rewrite for compatibility. Basically, just sit back whilst we do the work!

I’m a geek about this kind of thing, tell me more!

The PHP 5.4 interpreter itself, along with a nice selection of modules, is being rolled out across the board right now – any early adopters out there who feel like giving it a whirl can do so by making their scripts executable (chmod 755) and putting this shebang on the first line:

#!/usr/bin/php54

As for the new Apache, it’s been tested pretty thoroughly on a small number of servers during January and we’re very pleased with the results, not to mention the customer feedback. That being the case we’re forging ahead with a staged rollout this month. Carefully, of course – it’s a substantial upgrade!

And a final point worth noting: unlike some hosts who will be dropping older versions of PHP this year, we’ll continue to provide full support for versions 5.3, 5.2, and 4 alongside the new 5.4 update. It’s how we roll.