I've been requested to upgrade php on a number of systems. Currently, they are running version 4.3.4, and the most recent upgrade on the php.net site was version 5.1.6. I've never done this before, and have little clue what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm hoping that once I get it figured out for one system, I can upgrade the others with the same instructions without much trouble. (Hope-hope-hope)

First question: As far as I can tell, the systems in question are running the Apache2 webserver. Will I need to down Apache before I upgrade PHP, or should I leave it running?

More questions to come, no doubt.

Thanks in advance,
-EnderX

Do you have a test environment you can test first? Save your php.ini file where you can get it, and walk through and make the changes to the php.ini file that comes with PHP5. They're not exactly the same, so you can't transfer one to the other.

I've done it on EasyPHP, it was a matter of copying the files over and updating the php.ini file. This might not be the cleanest way to do it, but it works.

You'll want to look at some of the things that were changed in PHP5. MySQL is no longer compiled in with PHP, magic quotes is OFF by default and a few other things.

Thank you for your assistance.

I am now trying to follow up the last instructions in the Install directions that came with the php download. Instruction 15 involves telling apache what files to recognize as php; I'm assuming that the commands that follow would be included in the .conf file for apache, since that's where the previous commands went. The command in question (15) reads as "AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .phtml". Am I correct in assuming this goes in the apache .conf file? If so, where in the file, and if not, where does the command need to be entered?

Thank you again,
-EnderX

Look around in the file and do as they do. That's what I usually do when I go to do what you are doing when I go to do it. ;-)