We now support Simple Machines Forum 2.1.7.

We will be updating all Managed Simple Machines Forum Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Thursday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Saturday and Sunday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your Simple Machines Forum installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

PostgreSQL 14 will be end-of-life on 2026-11-12 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 14 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 15
2. PostgreSQL 16
3. PostgreSQL 17
4. PostgreSQL 18
5. PostgreSQL 19 (assuming released on schedule)

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 14 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 14 to PostgreSQL 15.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support PostgreSQL 18. We have included the following modules in our build:

1. citext - Case-insensitive character string type.
2. cube - Data type for representing multidimensional cubes, used by the earthdistance module.
3. earthdistance - Allows spatial indexing of geographical coordinates - (latitude, longitude) pairs.

Due to requiring OpenSSL 1.1.1 or newer, we are only supporting PostgreSQL 18 in Rocky 9 and above.

We now support PostgreSQL 16. We have included the following modules in our build:

1. citext - Case-insensitive character string type.
2. cube - Data type for representing multidimensional cubes, used by the earthdistance module.
3. earthdistance - Allows spatial indexing of geographical coordinates - (latitude, longitude) pairs.

We are updating all Rocky Linux managed servers from Rocky Linux 9.6 to Rocky Linux 9.7 this week.

We have not experienced any compatibility issues during our packaging and testing. However, the following guides may assist you in evaluating compatibility:

• Rocky Linux 9.7 Release Notes
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.7 Release Notes

This update includes an updated kernel, so each server will be rebooted as part of the update process. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

PostgreSQL 13 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of PostgreSQL are currently supported:

1. PostgreSQL 14
2. PostgreSQL 15
3. PostgreSQL 16
4. PostgreSQL 17
5. PostgreSQL 18

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 13 to PostgreSQL 14.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 13 will be end-of-life on 2025-11-13 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 13 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 14
2. PostgreSQL 15
3. PostgreSQL 16
4. PostgreSQL 17
5. PostgreSQL 18

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 13 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 13 to PostgreSQL 14.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 13 will be end-of-life on 2025-11-13 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 13 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 14
2. PostgreSQL 15
3. PostgreSQL 16
4. PostgreSQL 17
5. PostgreSQL 18

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 13 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 13 to PostgreSQL 14.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PHP 8.1 will be end-of-life on 2025-12-31 per PHP: Supported Versions.

The following versions of PHP will be supported at the time PHP 8.1 becomes end-of-life:

1. PHP 8.2
2. PHP 8.3
3. PHP 8.4
4. PHP 8.5

Please review the following migration guides in preparation for this upgrade:

1. Migrating from PHP 8.1.x to PHP 8.2.x
2. Migrating from PHP 8.2.x to PHP 8.3.x
3. Migrating from PHP 8.3.x to PHP 8.4.x
4. Migrating from PHP 8.4.x to PHP 8.5.x

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PHP 8.1 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PHP 8.1 to PHP 8.2.

We will carefully review all php.ini files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 13 will be end-of-life on 2025-11-13 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 13 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 14
2. PostgreSQL 15
3. PostgreSQL 16
4. PostgreSQL 17
5. PostgreSQL 18

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 13 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 13 to PostgreSQL 14.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 12 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of PostgreSQL are currently supported:

1. PostgreSQL 13
2. PostgreSQL 14
3. PostgreSQL 15
4. PostgreSQL 16
5. PostgreSQL 17

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 12 to PostgreSQL 13.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 12 will be end-of-life on 2024-11-21 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 12 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 13
2. PostgreSQL 14
3. PostgreSQL 15
4. PostgreSQL 16
5. PostgreSQL 17

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 12 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 12 to PostgreSQL 13.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

Python 3.8 will be end-of-life on 2024-10-07 per Supported Versions.

The following versions of Python will be supported at the time Python 3.8 becomes end-of-life:

1. Python 3.9
2. Python 3.10
3. Python 3.11
4. Python 3.12

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before Python 3.8 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of Python 3.8 to Python 3.9.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

Python 3.8 will be end-of-life on 2024-10-07 per Supported Versions.

The following versions of Python will be supported at the time Python 3.8 becomes end-of-life:

1. Python 3.9
2. Python 3.10
3. Python 3.11
4. Python 3.12

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before Python 3.8 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of Python 3.8 to Python 3.9.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 12 will be end-of-life on 2024-11-21 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 12 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 13
2. PostgreSQL 14
3. PostgreSQL 15
4. PostgreSQL 16
5. PostgreSQL 17

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 12 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 12 to PostgreSQL 13.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

Tomcat 8.5 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of Tomcat are currently supported:

1. Tomcat 9.0
2. Tomcat 10.1

Please review the following migration guides for this upgrade:

1. Tomcat 9.0.x Migration Guide
2. Tomcat 10.0.x Migration Guide
3. Tomcat 10.1.x Migration Guide

We now support in-place Tomcat upgrades to Tomcat 8.5 and above. This capability is available in AOSH through the following commands:

• set_httpd_shared_tomcat_version (for a Multi-Site Tomcat JVM)
• set_httpd_tomcat_std_site_version (for a Standard Tomcat JVM)

After performing the upgrade, please refer to the README.txt file in either /var/opt/apache-tomcat/…/README.txt (for a Multi-Site Tomcat JVM) or /var/www/…/README.txt (for a Standard Tomcat JVM). The README.txt file includes details about the auto-backup files named *.bak along with a generated command you may use to clean-up the backup files.

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of Tomcat 8.5 to Tomcat 9.0.

We will carefully review all *.bak files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. Applications will be restarted, possibly more than once, during this process.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support Java 21.

Java 21 may be used for any existing application by updating your profile script to include /opt/jdk-21/profile.sh (for Bourne shells) or /opt/jdk-21/profile.csh (for C shells). See this FAQ for more details on how to change Java versions:

/clientarea/FAQ.ao?category=jvms&page=profile

This is a LTS version, but we will not yet update our jdk-lts meta package. We will give Java 21 time to settle, with jdk-lts remaining Java 11 until further notice.

We are updating all Rocky Linux managed servers from Rocky Linux 9.2 to Rocky Linux 9.3 this week.

We have not experienced any compatibility issues during our packaging and testing. However, the following guides may assist you in evaluating compatibility:

• Rocky Linux 9.3 Release Notes
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.3 Release Notes

This update includes an updated kernel, so each server will be rebooted as part of the update process. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

PostgreSQL 12 will be end-of-life on 2024-11-21 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 12 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 13
2. PostgreSQL 14
3. PostgreSQL 15
4. PostgreSQL 16
5. PostgreSQL 17

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 12 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 12 to PostgreSQL 13.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 11 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of PostgreSQL are currently supported:

1. PostgreSQL 12
2. PostgreSQL 13
3. PostgreSQL 14
4. PostgreSQL 15
5. PostgreSQL 16

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 11 to PostgreSQL 12.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 6.3.2.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

Python 3.8 will be end-of-life on 2024-10-07 per Supported Versions.

The following versions of Python will be supported at the time Python 3.8 becomes end-of-life:

1. Python 3.9
2. Python 3.10
3. Python 3.11
4. Python 3.12

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before Python 3.8 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of Python 3.8 to Python 3.9.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PHP 8.0 will be end-of-life on 2023-11-26 per PHP: Supported Versions.

The following versions of PHP will be supported at the time PHP 8.0 becomes end-of-life:

1. PHP 5.4 (CentOS 7)
2. PHP 8.1
3. PHP 8.2

Please review the following migration guides in preparation for this upgrade:

1. Migrating from PHP 8.0.x to PHP 8.1.x
2. Migrating from PHP 8.1.x to PHP 8.2.x

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PHP 8.0 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PHP 8.0 to PHP 8.1.

We will carefully review all php.ini files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 11 will be end-of-life on 2023-11-09 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 11 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 12
2. PostgreSQL 13
3. PostgreSQL 14
4. PostgreSQL 15
5. PostgreSQL 16

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 11 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 11 to PostgreSQL 12.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support PHP 8.2.

We have made the following changes to our build between PHP 8.1 and PHP 8.2:

1. We have compiled PHP against PostgreSQL 15.

Please review Migrating from PHP 8.1.x to PHP 8.2.x in preparation for updating your applications.

We now support Simple Machines Forum 2.1.4.

We will be updating all Managed Simple Machines Forum Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Thursday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Saturday and Sunday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your Simple Machines Forum installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

Python 3.7 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of Python are currently supported:

1. Python 3.8
2. Python 3.9
3. Python 3.10
4. Python 3.11

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of Python 3.7 to Python 3.8.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PHP 8.0 will be end-of-life on 2023-11-26 per PHP: Supported Versions.

The following versions of PHP will be supported at the time PHP 8.0 becomes end-of-life:

1. PHP 5.4 (CentOS 7)
2. PHP 8.1
3. PHP 8.2

Please review the following migration guides in preparation for this upgrade:

1. Migrating from PHP 8.0.x to PHP 8.1.x
2. Migrating from PHP 8.1.x to PHP 8.2.x

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PHP 8.0 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PHP 8.0 to PHP 8.1.

We will carefully review all php.ini files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 6.2.1.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 6.2 “Dolphy”.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support Rocky Linux 9.1 managed servers.

Notable changes from our CentOS 7 managed servers:

1. Java 17 is switched from Oracle JDK back to OpenJDK.
2. PostgreSQL 15 is once again built with the Python module.
3. Switched from older libmemcached to current libmemcached-awesome.
4. Yum repository moved to AORepo.
5. No longer using underscores in AORepo package names. For example mysql_8_0 is now mysql-8.0.
6. PHP 8.0:
   1. OpenSSL disabled due to incompatibility with OpenSSL 3. Please upgrade to PHP 8.1 or newer if OpenSSL required.
7. s-nail replaces mailx
8. Apache Server 2.4.53:
   1. Using ListenFree directive to allow httpd to start before networking aliases. This removes the need for our previous httpd-after-network-online package.

We have not experienced any compatibility issues during our packaging and testing. However, the following guides may assist you in evaluating compatibility:

• Considerations in adopting RHEL 8
• Considerations in adopting RHEL 9
• Release Notes For Rocky Linux 9.0
• Release Notes For Rocky Linux 9.1

We will be communicating with clients regarding upgrading from CentOS 7 to Rocky 9. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

PHP 7.4 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of PHP are currently supported:

1. PHP 5.4 (CentOS 7)
2. PHP 8.0
3. PHP 8.1

Please review the following migration guides for this upgrade:

1. Migrating from PHP 7.4.x to PHP 8.0.x
2. Migrating from PHP 8.0.x to PHP 8.1.x

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.0.

We will carefully review all php.ini files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support Simple Machines Forum 2.1.3.

We will be updating all Managed Simple Machines Forum Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Thursday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Saturday and Sunday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your Simple Machines Forum installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

CentOS 7 kernel 3.10.0-1160.80.1 is now available. Please see RedHat Security Advisory 2022:7337 for more details.

As this update does not include any fixes for remote exploits, we are only updating managed servers with less trusted local users. As most of our clients only have more trusted users within their virtual servers, this means we will only reboot a small minority of the servers we manage.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

We now support PostgreSQL 15. We have included the following modules in our build:

1. citext - Case-insensitive character string type.
2. cube - Data type for representing multidimensional cubes, used by the earthdistance module.
3. earthdistance - Allows spatial indexing of geographical coordinates - (latitude, longitude) pairs.

This build does not include the Python module. The Python module requires Python 3 while CentOS 7 provides 2.7. Please let us know if you require the Python module, and we'll look into upgrading your instances to Rocky Linux 8.

PostgreSQL 10 is now end-of-life.

The following versions of PostgreSQL are currently supported:

1. PostgreSQL 11
2. PostgreSQL 12
3. PostgreSQL 13
4. PostgreSQL 14

For all managed servers, we are upgrading any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 10 to PostgreSQL 11.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 6.1 “Misha”.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support Java 19.

Java 19 may be used for any existing application by updating your profile script to include /opt/jdk-19/profile.sh (for Bourne shells) or /opt/jdk-19/profile.csh (for C shells). See this FAQ for more details on how to change Java versions:

/clientarea/FAQ.ao?category=jvms&page=profile

As this is a non-LTS version, Java 19 will be supported until Java 20 is available. At that time, all uses of Java 19 will be automatically updated to Java 20.

We now support WordPress 6.0.3.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

We now support WordPress 6.0.2.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

CentOS 7 kernel 3.10.0-1160.76.1 is now available. Please see RedHat Security Advisory 2022:5937 for more details.

As this update does not include any fixes for remote exploits, we are only updating managed servers with less trusted local users. As most of our clients only have more trusted users within their virtual servers, this means we will only reboot a small minority of the servers we manage.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

We now support WordPress 6.0.1.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

Java 18 will be end-of-life in September 2022 per Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap.

Please review the following resources in preparation for this upgrade:

1. JDK 19

Once end-of-life is reached:

1. Applications that use /opt/jdk-current/profile.* will switch from Java 18 to Java 19 on their next restart.
2. For all managed servers, we will replace /opt/jdk-18/profile.* with /opt/jdk-19/profile.*. We will also restart all applications currently running Java 18, so their profile scripts can select a newer version of Java.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

PostgreSQL 10 will be end-of-life on 2022-11-10 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 10 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 11
2. PostgreSQL 12
3. PostgreSQL 13
4. PostgreSQL 14

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 10 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 10 to PostgreSQL 11.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support Simple Machines Forum 2.1.2.

We will be updating all Managed Simple Machines Forum Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Wednesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your Simple Machines Forum installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

CentOS 7 kernel 3.10.0-1160.62.1 is now available. Please see RedHat Security Advisory 2022:1198 for more details.

As this update does not include any fixes for remote exploits, we are only updating managed servers with less trusted local users. As most of our clients only have more trusted users within their virtual servers, this means we will only reboot a small minority of the servers we manage.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

We now support WordPress 5.9.2.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

We now support WordPress 5.9.1.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

We now support WordPress 5.9 “Josephine”.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 5.8.3.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

We now support Simple Machines Forum 2.0.19.

We will be updating all Managed Simple Machines Forum Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your Simple Machines Forum installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

Please review your applications to mitigate Apache Log4j2 <= 2.14.1 arbitrary code execution vulnerability CVE-2021-44228.

For managed applications, we have updated dependencies and deployed to production.

For managed servers with Log4j >= 2.10, we added the log4j2.formatMsgNoLookups=true system property and restarted Tomcat.

For managed servers with Log4j < 2.10, we sent an email notification to technical contacts, describing the issue and highlighting which sites need updated.

Please see the following:

1. CVE-2021-44228
2. NVD - CVE-2021-44228
3. Microsoft’s Response to CVE-2021-44228 Apache Log4j 2

We are upgrading Git from the CentOS 7 default version 1.8.3.1 to version 2.30.1 provided by End Point Software Package Repositories.

We will upgrade managed instances during this week's four-round update roll-out.

We now support PHP 8.1.

We have made the following changes to our build between PHP 8.0 and PHP 8.1:

1. We have compiled PHP against PostgreSQL 14.

Please review Migrating from PHP 8.0.x to PHP 8.1.x in preparation for updating your applications.

PHP 7.4 will be end-of-life on 2022-11-28 per PHP: Supported Versions.

The following versions of PHP will be supported at the time PHP 7.4 becomes end-of-life:

1. PHP 5.4 (CentOS 7)
2. PHP 8.0
3. PHP 8.1

Please review the following migration guides in preparation for this upgrade:

1. Migrating from PHP 7.4.x to PHP 8.0.x
2. Migrating from PHP 8.0.x to PHP 8.1.x

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PHP 7.4 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.0.

We will carefully review all php.ini files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 5.8.2.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

PostgreSQL 10 will be end-of-life on 2022-11-10 per PostgreSQL: Versioning Policy.

The following versions of PostgreSQL will be supported at the time PostgreSQL 10 becomes end-of-life:

1. PostgreSQL 11
2. PostgreSQL 12
3. PostgreSQL 13
4. PostgreSQL 14

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PostgreSQL 10 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PostgreSQL 10 to PostgreSQL 11.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support PostgreSQL 14. We have included the following modules in our build:

1. citext - Case-insensitive character string type.
2. cube - Data type for representing multidimensional cubes, used by the earthdistance module.
3. earthdistance - Allows spatial indexing of geographical coordinates - (latitude, longitude) pairs.

Please note that password encryption now defaults to scram-sha-256.

We now support Java 17.

We have switched from OpenJDK to Oracle JDK for two reasons: First, RedHat/CentOS does not package Java 17 for CentOS 7. Second, as of Java 17, Oracle has changed the license to Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions (NFTC).

Java 17 may be used for any existing application by updating your profile script to include /opt/jdk-17/profile.sh (for Bourne shells) or /opt/jdk-17/profile.csh (for C shells). See this FAQ for more details on how to change Java versions:

/clientarea/FAQ.ao?category=jvms&page=profile

This is a LTS version, but we will not yet update our jdk-lts meta package. We will give Java 17 time to settle, with jdk-lts remaining Java 11 until further notice.

We now support WordPress 5.8.1.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We backup your WordPress installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

PHP 7.3 will be end-of-life on 2021-12-06 per PHP: Supported Versions.

The following versions of PHP will be supported at the time PHP 7.3 becomes end-of-life:

1. PHP 5.4 (CentOS 7)
2. PHP 7.4
3. PHP 8.0
4. PHP 8.1

Please review the following migration guides in preparation for this upgrade:

1. Migrating from PHP 7.3.x to PHP 7.4.x
2. Migrating from PHP 7.4.x to PHP 8.0.x
3. Migrating from PHP 8.0.x to PHP 8.1.x

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before PHP 7.3 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of PHP 7.3 to PHP 7.4.

We will carefully review all php.ini files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support Managed Simple Machines Forum Hosting.

We will install Simple Machines Forum, then keep Simple Machines Forum, and all installed mods, up-to-date on your behalf.

You have full administrative control over your Simple Machines Forum installation and may install any desired mods. For mods not from SMF Mod Site, we may need to communicate with you regarding where to find changelogs and how to download updates.

We read the changelogs and published version compatibility, but will tend to install all available updates. We will perform a basic test of your site before and after updates, but we cannot accept responsibility for any site breaking due to these updates. We will resolve site problems on billable time, should the client not want to do this themselves.

We support four rounds of updates, nominally with round 1 on Tuesday through round 4 on Friday, but the precise schedule depends on both our workload and the schedule and urgency of the updates. The expected use-case of the four-round cycle is you may choose to have a dev site updated in round 1, then the production site updated in round 3 or 4, giving you a few days to test updates for compatibility during the weekly roll-out cycle.

We backup your Simple Machines Forum installation (both files and database dump) before and after applying updates. Backup files are available at /var/www/site_name/var/backups/. These backup files are then replicated to additional servers both on-site and off-site per the server's configured file backup policy.

We now include the Internationalization Extension in our PHP 7.3, PHP 7.4, and PHP 8.0 builds as a shared library in a separate php-intl package.

This extension provides for compatibility with MediaWiki 1.36.

pecl_imagick 3.5.1 has been released for PHP 8.0, which we have activated in our builds.

CentOS 7 kernel 3.10.0-1160.31.1 is now available. Please see RedHat Security Advisory 2021:2314 for more details.

As this update does not include any fixes for remote exploits, we are only updating managed servers with less trusted local users. As most of our clients only have more trusted users within their virtual servers, this means we will only reboot a small minority of the servers we manage.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.

Java 16 will be end-of-life in September 2021 per Oracle Java SE Support Roadmap.

Please review the following resources in preparation for this upgrade:

1. JDK 17

Once end-of-life is reached:

1. Applications that use /opt/jdk-current/profile.* will switch from Java 16 to Java 17 on their next restart.
2. For all managed servers, we will replace /opt/jdk-16/profile.* with /opt/jdk-17/profile.*. We will also restart all applications currently running Java 16, so their profile scripts can select a newer version of Java.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support WordPress 5.7.2.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

New package nginx-yum-post-actions that restarts the nginx.service systemd unit when Yum updates the nginx package.

The Nginx packages do not automatically restart the nginx.service systemd unit when updated. This package adds a Yum post-action to restart the service when the nginx package is updated. Install this package to servers running Nginx to ensure updates are fully applied.

We have installed this package to all managed instances that have the nginx package installed. Furthermore, we have made this a standard part of our Nginx installation procedures.

We now support WordPress 5.7.1.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We have upgraded to Apache Maven 3.8.1.

Please review the Release Notes, of which we highlight the following:

…external HTTP insecure URLs are now blocked by default…

We now support Tomcat 10.0 in both single-site and multi-site configurations. We have included the latest PostgreSQL JDBC Driver built for Java 8. We have also included the latest MySQL JDBC Driver 8.0.*.

Please review Migration Guide - Tomcat 10.0.x thoroughly, of which we highlight the following:

• Session management:

  Session persistence on restart has been disabled by default. It may be re-enabled globally in conf/context.xml or per web application.

We now support Java 16.

Java 16 may be used for any existing application by updating your profile script to include /opt/jdk-16/profile.sh (for Bourne shells) or /opt/jdk-16/profile.csh (for C shells). See this FAQ for more details on how to change Java versions:

/clientarea/FAQ.ao?category=jvms&page=profile

As this is a non-LTS version, Java 16 will be supported until Java 17 is available. At that time, all uses of Java 16 will be automatically updated to Java 17.

Tomcat 7.0 will be end-of-life on 2021-03-31 per End of life for Apache Tomcat 7.0.x.

The following versions of Tomcat will be supported at the time Tomcat 7.0 becomes end-of-life:

1. Tomcat 8.5
2. Tomcat 9.0
3. Tomcat 10.0

Please review the following migration guides in preparation for this upgrade:

1. Tomcat 8.5.x Migration Guide
2. Tomcat 9.0.x Migration Guide
3. Tomcat 10.0.x Migration Guide

We will communicate with you individually to coordinate any required upgrades before Tomcat 7.0 reaches end-of-life.

Once end-of-life is reached, we will upgrade any remaining uses of Tomcat 7.0 to Tomcat 8.5.

We will carefully review all server.xml and web.xml files to maintain any customizations through the upgrade. As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We now support MoinMoin Wiki 1.9.11.

We will be updating all Managed MoinMoin Wiki Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We have disabled xmlrpc.php for all managed WordPress installations. Please contact us if you would like xmlrpc.php enabled.

We now support WordPress 5.6.1.

We will be updating all Managed WordPress Hosting accounts this week following our usual four-round release cycle, with development sites being updated today (Tuesday).

Please thoroughly test your development sites early before updates make it to production update rounds on Thursday and Friday.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times.

We have upgraded our jdk-lts meta-package from Java 8 (LTS) to Java 11 (LTS).

We have added a new jdk-old meta-package that remains Java 8 (LTS).

Please review the following migration guides for this upgrade:

1. Java 11 Migration Guide

For managed servers, we have replaced all /opt/jdk-lts/profile.* with /opt/jdk-old/profile.*, so applications will not be upgraded to a new major version unannounced. For each of the applications now on /opt/jdk-old/profile.*, we have communicated with clients requesting permission to upgrade to Java 11.

We also replaced all /opt/jdk-11/profile.* with /opt/jdk-lts/profile.*. We had already worked with clients to move most applications to Java 11, so this change is consistent with the intent of the existing Java 11 applications.

For our Remote Desktops, we have replaced the antiquated VNC Java Applet with the much more modern and compatible JavaScript-only noVNC. While noVNC connects over WebSockets, custom clients may still connect to port 5900/TCP with SSL enabled.

CentOS 7 kernel 3.10.0-1160.11.1 is now available. Please see RedHat Security Advisory 2020:5437 for more details.

This update does include fixes for remote exploits, so we are updating all managed servers.

As usual, we will perform these updates during your scheduled maintenance times while performing any documented per-server custom procedures before and after the reboot.