EasyApache 3 Deprecation Schedule

How about providing a solid, stable replacement BEFORE tying to rush everyone onto garbage software... you know, like professional developers do.

EA4 is not stable, or ready for any stable server

 

Um, no, no it's not... it's not even close to stable.
When software screws up so badly that a server format is required to fix it, that it's NOT stable software.

Professional software development demands a fully stable, bug free replacement , for at least a year before deprecating or removing older versions. Given the most recent issues with pear and ea4, those requirements are not met.

Nobody is going to open a ticket and put their server on hold for hours here. EA4 IS NOT STABLE

 

Why should we have to put our sites, our customer services at risk?
EA4 is not stable, by any means. Again, I just look at the mess you caused with pear and PHP. That's all we need to know.

Like I said in my last post, software development demands at least one year of bug free operation , which has not been met here.

 

[Mod Edit: off topic comments removed]

Back to the topic at hand:
EA4 is still broken, end of statement. It's not even out of beta testing (was it even tested)

I've spent the past 6 hours now cleaning up from the mess of yet another EA4 failed migration, and I'm still not done.
Open up a ticket, you say? Yeah, right... I can't afford to keep my sites down for hours on end while you ignore the ticket. Sorry, not happening.

 

Hi,

It looks like the new cPanel installations(58) doesn't include EA3. So, how can I use it if needed.

Just found this thread.

v58 – EasyApache 3 and EasyApache 4.

• With the release of cPanel & WHM version 58, EasyApache 4 will be the default web stack on fresh installations. EasyApache 4 offers full parity with EasyApache 3, with improved install and configuration times. You’ll still be able to use EasyApache 3 if you prefer, with a bit of extra configuration first.

Can anyone please instruct how to use EA3 with cPanel 58.

Thanks!

 

Hi Jacob,

Thanks a lot for the info.

Regards,
Vipin H

 

I'd appreciate some clarification. All my servers run CloudLinux + CageFS + PHP Selector + EA3. Up until a few days ago i was running 54 LTS. My servers are now all on 56 LTS. I run EA3 across the board and likely will not be doing any EA3-->EA4 migrations anytime in the near future. Information in the cPanel docs regarding the EA3 deprecation schedule state:

If my servers were all EA3 from the start and have not been converted to EA4, is it safe to move to 11.58? Will 100% of the EA3 functionality still be there? Is the "extra configuration" only something that people need to be concerned about if they want EA3 on a fresh WHM 58 install? I want to know that if/when I upgrade to WHM 58 I should not have any issues with my web service. If I'm on WHM 56 + EA3 and update to 11.58, do I still have the typical EA3 interface available to me? Is there any significant likelihood that my sites are going to stop working / that something in PHP Selector will get fudged up? When running EA3, is an update from WHM 56 to WHM 58 as stable and pain free as the update from WHM 54 to WHM 56 was?

Does this also mean / suggest that if I'm running CloudLinux+CageFS+PHP Selector + EA3, I can safely and reliably upgrade all the way to WHM 60 (after updating to WHM 58) with confidence, not having to worry about PHP Selector breakage or Apache breakage?

If no other question of mine is answered, please answer this: Can I expect to continue to update to WHM 58 and then WHM 60 while retaining 100% of my current EA3 / PHP Selector setup, and have complete confidence that the update to WHM 58 and then to WHM 60 will be smooth?

I'm hoping to have the confidence [in both cPanel and CloudLinux] for me to migrate to EA4 before EA3 is EOLd. But, if I decide I'm going to run EA3 up to the very last minute, are my WHM 56->58 and WHM 58->60 updates going to be seemless like earlier updates have been?

Mike

 

Jacob,

Thanks for the assurance that things should go fine for me, upgrading from WHM 56 to 58 and then from WHM 56 to 60 whilst still running EA3.

Trust me, I don't want to wait until the last minute to migrate to EA4. I'd love to migrate all my servers this weekend. But seriously, I'm a small host and can't afford to have hundreds of customers down per machine for potentially hours upon hours if something goes wrong. I'd prefer to see <insert the name of any big company who runs cPanel> migrate a considerable server base over first. Why? Because they can afford to have 1000 angry customers at a time and their business wouldn't go under / nobody would be out of work / they would have a collective of admins [and the attention of cPanel / CL] to help them get things resolved.

I'd prefer to let "the big guys" be the ones to help you discover anomalies in the process so that they can be fixed in future updates and I don't have the issues Being a small hosting company, I don't have the luxury of alienating hundreds of customers due to a botched upgrade that I didn't need to perform. The big guys can afford to lose thousands of customers at once and everyone would go home and sleep that night.

At the very least, I would think that before I attempt to migrate from EA3 to EA4, I should be running the most recent Release (such as 58 Release) instead of 56 Release. Wouldn't that be recommended by you/cPanel as well?

Mike

 

Hi mtindor,

I thought I would share my experiences with upgrading a production server from 11.56.0.32 to 11.58.0.20

For the comparison (after upgrade), here are my server specs:

redhat-release:CloudLinux Server release 6.8 (Oleg Makarov)
version:11.58.0.20
envtype:standard
CPANEL=release
Server version: Apache/2.4.23 (Unix)
Server built: Jul 26 2016 20:51:39
Cpanel::Easy::Apache v3.34.3 rev9999 +cloudlinux
PHP 5.6.24 (cli) (built: Jul 26 2016 20:53:43) Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies with the ionCube PHP Loader v4.7.5, Copyright (c) 2002-2014, by ionCube Ltd.
mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.0.26-MariaDB, for Linux (x86_64) using readline 5.1

Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1240v3, 3.40GHz, 8 Logical Cores
Memory: 8GB RAM

Now I wish I could say that the upgrade went perfectly ..... oh wait..... IT DID !!

The only hick-up I experienced was the on screen output (I did the upgrade inside WHM not as a CL) stopped at

Code:

Running horde-db-migrate for “abcdefghi”.
The system is archiving the Horde data to the “/home/abcdefghi/.cphorde/meta/horde.backup.sql.20160817” file.
The system is cleaning the old Horde data archives.

I left it for some time then checked to see if upcp had completed, and the logs actually revealed that the processes had continued after my on-screen output had stopped, and that the whole upgrade completed successfully.

I was delighted with the smooth upgrade, and the obvious amount of care and attention that the developers had put into this part of the codebase.

The next trick is reviewing all the new features and settings that this version offers - it is well worth methodically working through them all, and setting them up to suit your clients.

 

Are you sure you aren't logged into one of my servers? Very similar setups.

Good deal. Thanks for the positive report. I figured that while I continue to hash out when I will migrate to EA4, I should continue to keep WHM on the latest version if at all possible and familiarize myself with new features. And I agree about the methodical approach. I really hate surprises, especially those that occur due to my lack of reading release notes and reviewing new settings.

I might move up to 58 this weekend. Even though I'm still on EA3, I'll feel much better once everything is on 58.

Mike

 

No I have not. I've got six accounts left to migrate off of my oldest machine. I was going to go through the process of migrating that machine to EA4 with some old test accounts on it after I got production customers off it.

This is [welcomed] news to me. I do have a spare VM and would love to do just as you suggest. I'll reach out to CS.

Historically I've never been one to provide much in the way of constructive feedback. Just don't have time / am not willing to devote the time. The only time you hear from me is when something is wrong, and I rarely write up suggestions as to what I think could be done to improve things. But I will try to adjust my ways a little bit and give feedback when I can.

Thanks for your thoughtful responses. I know it's hard to respond with a reasonable response when everyone [like myself] is flying off the handle

Onward and upward, but at a reasonable pace. I'll get a dev license and check out EA4, and I'll still plan to do an EA3-EA4 migration on the soon to be decommissioned server. Maybe, just maybe, I could actually migrate to EA4 this year. I really would love to do that.

Mike

 

Here's the thing regarding all of this:

Obviously, feedback isn't "critical to making this a success". if it was, we wouldn't be here, what, 3 years down the road now, with catastrophic failures.

I understand you want to move on from EA3, and, great. However, you're putting customer servers at risk here.. You're putting critical services at risk, without providing a stable alternative.

Just because you think it's stable doesn't mean it is. Simply dismissing the statements, or attacking those that have made them (from personal experience) doesn't mean the problem is going away.

As a company, you need to step back, and return to the position of the customer here. What you're demanding (essentially) is ludicrous. You're telling everyone 'Hey, you must switch now', when , honestly, there hasn't been a 'stable' version released, without any sort of issues.

I'll give this one more shot at some point this weekend, but I'm not going to be 'reporting' anything to cPanel, or waiting your typical hours on end for ticket responses. That's just outrageous. I wouldn't expect this from clients, and it's just silly to expect that from us.

I expect, when something like this takes place (and most do) that it is seamless. NO issues, whatsoever. Historically, however (and I've tried this, going on 4 times now), not the case. Too many permissions issues, too many loader issues. Just a huge, huge mess