October 26, 2026 · StackPioneer
Adding a second web server to a legacy PHP app is mostly not a load-balancer problem. Sessions on local disk, uploads in the document root, cron running twice, and caches that only clear on one node — here is how to find each one and fix it without a rewrite.
Read moreOctober 19, 2026 · StackPioneer Engineering
do-release-upgrade moves your OS and your PHP, MySQL, Apache and OpenSSL versions in one step. Here is how to split that into separately reversible changes, what each hop actually ships, and when to build a new box instead.
Read moreOctober 12, 2026 · StackPioneer
Most legacy PHP apps have no usable staging environment, so upgrades get rehearsed in production. Here is a repeatable way to build one from a restored backup: scripted anonymization of the MySQL dump, neutered outbound mail and payment keys, and a refresh job that runs on a schedule.
Read moreSeptember 21, 2026 · StackPioneer
You do not need a rewrite to replace a legacy PHP application. One Apache virtual host, a shared session store, and a route-by-route cutover let new code run beside the old app in production — and let you delete the old route once the new one has earned it.
Read moreSeptember 21, 2026 · StackPioneer
Before you change a single PHP version on a server, get a file-by-file list of what will break. PHPCompatibility scans for version incompatibilities, Rector fixes the mechanical ones, and a characterization test suite tells you whether the fixes held.
Read moreSeptember 17, 2026 · StackPioneer
Emoji that vanish, accented names that turn into question marks, and a schema half in latin1. Here is how to find out what encoding your bytes are actually in, convert without double-encoding, and handle the index-length and collation traps on MySQL 8.
Read moreSeptember 14, 2026
The 5.x-to-8.0 jump gets all the attention, but the minor-version treadmill is where most estates are stuck now. Security support for PHP 8.1 ended on 31 December 2025. Here is what actually breaks between 8.1 and 8.4, and how to roll it out with a warm rollback.
Read moreSeptember 14, 2026 · StackPioneer
`composer audit` takes seconds and usually produces an alarming list. Here is how to read it honestly, separate reachable CVEs from noise, handle abandoned and vendored code, and get the count to zero without a rewrite.
Read moreSeptember 14, 2026 · StackPioneer
CentOS 7 lost updates in June 2024. Here is the honest comparison of in-place upgrade versus build-new-and-cut-over, plus the four things that actually break on EL9: OpenSSL 3 crypto policies, MariaDB-by-default, SELinux, and the PHP that came from SCL.
Read moreSeptember 10, 2026
PHP 8.1 and MySQL 5.7 are out of security support, and CentOS 7 and Ubuntu 20.04 followed them. Here are the commands that turn "we think we're patched" into a dated inventory with a remediation order.
Read moreJune 16, 2026
Most LAMP performance problems are a missing cache at one of three layers — opcode, application, HTTP — or a cache someone believes is working and is not. The wins that take hours, not weeks.
Read moreApril 14, 2026
Most PHP 8 migrations are less work than teams fear — but the work hides in predictable places. Loose comparisons, throwing internals, removals, and how to inventory it all before you deploy.
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