I just recently started at a new company, and their live server has PHP v5.2.6 (yes, circa 2008). A site I recently designed for them actually wouldn't work on it because PHP is so old, so I've now been tasked with upgrading the server. I'm thinking the best process is:Copying over all of our live sites to my personal serverTesting our sites on my personal server with the newest versions of all of our softwareMaking the versions on my server live (so that there are no interruptions in web access)Upgrading to the newest versions of all of our software on our live serverMoving all of our sites back to our live serverMaking the sites on our live server live againDoes anybody see any holes in this plan?
Best process for upgrading a live server
php;apache;linux;live
I think closetnoc's advice is good, and your plan is sound, but in the comments there, you mentioned that you're running on a VPS on linode already. Depending on your time frame, what's preventing you from spinning up another VPS on linode, provisioning it exactly as needed and switching over to it, then shutting down/destroying the old VM? Is it just cost? I'd personally imagine that the time and cost saved in keeping you from moving the site twice would be significant. Still, I've worked for nonprofits, and understand the limitations when it comes to these kinds of costs. To make this more accurately address your question, the only hole I see, given your constraints and situation, is that you may have a more efficient option. I don't inherently see anything wrong with your plan otherwise.Regardless, if it was me, and I was operating off of a VPS already, I'd try to clone the existing VPS as a starting point, make all the upgrades (again, all of them, as closetnoc recommends) and then switch it once.