Changes and improvements to WebTech Linux web services

• Overview
• Changes to current services
• Completed projects and service retirements

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Overview

Following is an overview of upcoming changes and improvements to WebTech Linux web services, and a review of completed projects and service retirements. These include Sitehost (iu.edu, all campus gateway sites, and many departmental and organizational websites), and pages.iu.edu (individual) web pages. The document records events starting in Spring 2018.

This information will be updated regularly; dates are subject to change.

Changes to current services

• PHP
  • Switch default: 8.2 (Summer 2024)
  • Disable 8.1 (Winter 2024)

Completed projects and service retirements

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Winter 2023)

PHP 8.0 was disabled for Sitehost. Available versions: 8.1 (default), 8.2.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Summer 2023)

PHP 8.1 was set as the default version for Sitehost. Available versions: 8.0, 8.1 (default), 8.2.

Load balancer migration to F5 (Summer 2023)

Throughout 2023 Sitehost and Pages were migrated to new Load balancers. Sitehost Test was migrated in April, Pages in June, and Sitehost Production started in June and continued through November.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Spring 2023)

PHP 8.2 was enabled for Sitehost. Available versions: 8.0 (default), 8.1, 8.2.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Summer 2022)

PHP 7.4 was disabled for Sitehost. Available versions: 8.0 (default), 8.1.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Spring 2022)

PHP 8.0 was set as the default version for Sitehost. Available versions: 7.4, 8.0 (default), 8.1.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Winter 2021)

PHP 8.1 was enabled for Sitehost. Available versions: 7.4 (default), 8.0, 8.1.

MySQL 8.0 upgrade for Sitehost (Spring 2021)

In January 2021, the Sitehost test servers were upgraded from MySQL 5.7 to 8.0. Sitehost production servers were upgraded in February 2021.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Spring 2021)

PHP 8.0 was enabled for Sitehost.

Storage migration for Sitehost and pages.iu.edu (Fall 2020)

User files on Sitehost and pages.iu.edu were migrated to a new storage system. No action was needed to migrate their files, and access to files behaves exactly as before the migration.

Security enhancements for Sitehost and pages.iu.edu (Summer 2020)

On August 13, 2020, WebTech implemented a number of security enhancements to bring the Sitehost environment into alignment with the Center for Internet Security (CIS) Benchmarks. The new Pages environment also includes these enhancements. These changes should have little or no impact for most users. These changes do not affect published websites, but may affect SSH/SFTP connectivity with older clients; updating SSH/SFTP clients should resolve any connectivity problems.

Pages.iu.edu migration (Summer 2020)

Pages.iu.edu was migrated to new servers on August 4, 2020. (The original migration date, July 12, 2020, was rescheduled based on user and support community feedback.) Most websites were migrated without user intervention. For more about the migration and changes to the Pages service, see About pages.iu.edu. Archives of accounts that were not migrated were retained until August 4, 2021.

PHP Changes for Sitehost (Spring 2020)

Sitehost was upgraded to PHP 7.4.

Webserve/Transform/Siteshare retirements and changes (Winter 2019)

• PHP sites in the Webserve environment were retired on December 23, 2019.
• The remainder of the Webserve environment, including Transform and Siteshare, was retired on April 16, 2020.
• Archives of Webserve account files were retained until April 15, 2021.
• ~username URLs were redirected until July 20, 2021.

Sitehost (Summer 2019)

Sitehost replaced the Webserve environment. Sitehost entered production use in August 2019.

Improvements and changes in the Sitehost environment include:

• Better performance and stability
• PHP versions 7.3 is available on Sitehost.
• HTTPS only: Any HTTP requests are redirected to HTTPS
• Full IPv6 support
• No more ~account URLs; all accounts automatically have a virtual host account.sitehost.iu.edu
• Full duplication of resources between IUB and IUPUI data centers to provide robust disaster recovery
• Self-service account and virtual host management
• Automated server management for quicker, more flexible, and less disruptive system and software updates

File system migration for Webserve and Pages (Fall 2018)

The WebTech Linux team attempted to migrate user files for Webserve and pages.iu.edu to a new file system in fall 2018. Serious problems were encountered that could not be resolved despite extensive consultations with the vendor, so these services were reverted to the legacy file system. Webserve and pages.iu.edu remained on the legacy file system until they were retired in December 2020.

Digital Streaming Media (Summer 2018)

The Digital Streaming Media service was retired on June 30, 2018. Kaltura is available as an alternative service. For more, see About Kaltura at IU.

PHP 5.6 (Spring 2018)

PHP 5.6 was retired in December 2018. This was a hard deadline due to the end of support for this version.

• January 18, 2018: The default version of PHP on webtest.iu.edu was changed to 7.1.
• March 22, 2018: PHP 7.1 became the default version on production web servers. PHP 5.6 was still available if you specified the PHP version in your .htaccess file.
• December 17, 2018: PHP 5.6 was retired on all Webserve and Webtest servers. All PHP applications have been directed to PHP 7.1.

MySQL migration (Spring 2018)

The Legacy MySQL for Webserve service was retired on May 31, 2018 and replaced by the MySQL for Webserve service. For more, see About MySQL for Sitehost.