Today I updated my gentoo server’s eselected PHP from 5.6 to 7.2 and wordpress phabricator and mediawiki didn’t even hiccup. WordPress went from a steaming pile of stubborn version upgrade refusal right back into line. I used mysqldump to back up all my databases, less than a GB. I git pulled phabricator’s stable branch (updated weekly from master) and ran a boatload of database patches that went smooth as coconut milkfat. I git-skipped the .arcconfig files so i could just update them in place. OK… why did that all just work?

Update: I went ahead and made the phabricator-recommended changes to mysql and PHP, including installing a PHP memory-based cache:

emerge -DavuN dev-php/pecl-apcu

And that, of course, cascaded me into a gentoo server update.

  • first I had to [emerge -av glibc] as it was ancient
  • do not put comments in [/etc/portage/package.use/zzz_autounmask]
  • used advice from gentoo perl docs:
emerge -uDNav --with-bdeps=y --backtrack=100 --autounmask-keep-masks=y @world

And away we go…

UPDATE: ok these are a few more of my “favorite” things…

  • mediawiki required an update, I had to manually tweak my multi-site LocalSettings overrides since some themes were removed, and some were added.
  • I decided to go through all the phabricator tweaks that it complains about.
  • I fell into an update of my fork of Simple Web Server, not really related except that it was YA deep rabbit hole.
  • Files served up were made real pretty with this; I had to tweak the .htaccess to make it correctly mo safe.
  • Moving to boost 1_69_0 was actually a lot of (CPU) work.
  • While I was moving things around, I set up a nice git flow for my stock app, with branches:
    • develop
      • feature/postgress-archive
      • refactor/use-archive-db
    • master
      • release/1.55.41-pre-archive-database

Sometimes you just gotta stop and have a bump…

My domains just got a little more life in them. As in, an A rating from ssllabs, at least for the moment!

ssl_A

Highlights:

  • Problem: Time Warner has a monopoly on broadband here; they gouge you if you want a static IP; and they do thorough reporting of all IP ranges as dynamic to spamhaus, so no email servers from home folks
  • Problem: 1and1 has a horrible interface to maintain even a handful of domains, as you have to use a useless separate “packages” layer to get enough subdomains; they charge for email
  • Solution: Switched all domains to Google Registrar, which has a much better UI, supports subdomains, and allows domain name email forwarding for free
  • Solution: Once you have control over your domain email, StartSSL provides amazing easy free SSL certs; they have the BEST completely automated service and the best docs; my Apache site configs are now better organized, SNI-based, and the sites are getting great scores on ssllabs, thanks to using Mozilla’s “modern” recommendations
  • Solution: phabricator needs to run on its own domain, and with this new level of control, I can easily get that going; although curl and arcanist are picky about the CA store – I could NOT get them to work with the agile.bitpost.com subdomain, at all, and I really tried – so I went with https://abettersoftware.org

A brave new world.  I love it when a plan comes together.

I’ve documented my Phabricator workflow on the wiki.  It’s working great.  The very-configurable workboard column configuration can make querying difficult. But epriestley works hard to keep the whole thing driving forward without it spinning into chaos.  I just did a [git pull] and got the new features I was looking for that allowed me to save sort defaults for my workboards, just perfect.  I’m still waiting for one more feature, but I have workarounds described on the wiki to keep my flow pretty damned tight.