Pandora FMS Migration: from PHP5 to PHP7

Let’s migrate to php 7: Pandora FMS new way to improve

“Life is cyclical, but ascending.” This phrase can be used for a number of situations. We will explain one of those wonderful events that occured in the world of technology: migration. Yes, “life is cyclic, but ascending”. Let’s migrate to php 7.

Pandora FMS leaves the lands of PHP5, whose life cycle, like everything else, was outdated, and starts to migrate to php 7. Well, so many ornithologist and vitalist analogy to explain that, simply, we are going to improve the experience of the users.

Let’s migrate to php7

As we said, unfortunately for PHP5, its life cycle will come to an end. This is because its latest version, 5.6, will cease to receive official support. It is for this reason that Pandora FMS has been forced to migrate from PHP5 to PHP7, with all that this entails.

It was a very meditated change, with different ideas, such as trying to coexist both versions of PHP within the same machine. This idea was discarded due to the incompatibilities of libraries between one version and another.

Another reason why Pandora FMS team has seen the need to change is because of the introduction of the use of new libraries that replace certain obsolete libraries used in the PHP5 version, which issued a warning in the background for their use. This is the case of the MySQLi extension that Pandora FMS uses now, with which we can access the MySQL functionality in versions 4.1 and later. This extension contains numerous enhancements to its predecessor (mysql extension), such as an object-oriented interface or support for multiple declarations, among others.
Let’s migrate to PHP7: Advantages of PHP7. There are many advantages to switching from PHP5 to PHP7, but in this article we will focus on the most visible ones, without going into detail on those focused on developers.

One of the main advantages of PHP7 is performance improvement. This version of PHP, as well as the later versions that will come out, allows twice as many requests per second in the system. This means, for example, that a website will see its loading time drastically reduced. This improvement is also given by a gradual decrease in memory occupation, thanks to the fact that the PHP7 core has been partially renewed.

A fundamental change in PHP7 is the increase in security. As usual, each new version or patch corrects possible security flaws and increases the fight against security vulnerabilities. Specifically, in the PHP7 version, certain key generation functions that had been compromised have been eliminated, creating new, more secure functions that strengthen the security of our system.

Let’s migrate to PHP7: How does this change affect Pandora FMS?

The code underneath Pandora FMS tool has been revolutionized with the arrival of PHP7, this causes a lot of headaches for the developers who make it possible for the tool to improve every day.

As it has been previously mentioned, the non coexistence of both versions of PHP in our system implies the obligatory change from one version to another for the use of the new versions of Pandora FMS.
The use of the new libraries introduced in PHP7 has caused great improvements in Pandora FMS. One of them is the generation of reports in PDF in a more efficient way, both in the time necessary for the generation of the document and the memory necessary for this generation. Another one is that the security when it comes to sending emails has been drastically increased, as well as the outgoing speed of emails that are generated when it comes to sending alerts with this type of action.

One of the changes, that our support team has celebrated with enthusiasm, has been the improvement when it comes to tracking errors and warnings generated by the Pandora FMS tool. Until now, these messages were very generic, giving little detail of the actual place where the bug was generated. Thanks to PHP7 improvements, we can now get to the root of the problem directly with a simple glance at the right log.

Let’s migrate to PHP7: How to Upgrade

In order to make the update task easier and without any problems we have to follow the steps dictated in the following links.

URL:

https://wiki.pandorafms.com/index.php?title=Pandora:Documentation_en:_PHP_7

By the way, how about a little space to chat about the latest in monitoring? Do you know Pandora FMS? Pandora FMS, is a flexible monitoring system, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.

Do you still want to know more about system monitoring? Luckily, you are in the right place to learn more. In this blog there are dozens of articles that can introduce you to this exciting world. You can find a link to our homepage here: https://pandorafms.com/blog/

Or you can also get to know Pandora FMS directly. Click here: https://pandorafms.com

You can even send us any query you may have about Pandora FMS. You can do it in a very simple way, thanks to the contact form that can be found at the following address: https://pandorafms.com/contact/