I like to keep the server as up to date as possible, usually waiting a few days to update after Apple releases a fix or Security update. Since I was on vacation for a week and traveling the three weeks before that, I missed the last Security update for Mac OS X Server. I can tell you now, I wish I was still missing it!
When I got back from vacation I noticed an awful noise coming from the server. Last night I finally broke down and investigated the cause — turned out to be the external FireWire drive that got hosed; completely hosed, like it doesn’t work anymore.
That’s the good news.
I disconnected the drive and while I was working on it I installed the latest security update and restarted the server, rebooting the switches and router as well. When it came back up the site was completely dead! I worked for six hours trying to find the problem, which at first glance appeared to be a MySQL error or a problem with PHP.
Checking the update notes I saw that Apple had in fact updated PHP to resolve a vunerability. I tried everything, including fresh installs of PHP and MySQL, but nothing worked. Then about 2:00 am I stumbled across the problem — the Security update somehow screwed up the Zend Optimizer.
After updating to the latest version of Zend the site magically came back up again. It was a hell of a ride and not one I want to go on again anytime soon.
February 10th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Was this an update to PHP 4.3.10? Was it just in OS X Server? I couldn’t find a direct reference to a PHP update in the 10.3.8 (non-server) Update (which I assume is the one you’re writing about).
February 10th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Hi Eric, you’re quick, I’m just getting the site setup
Actually it was the Security Update 2005 001 (I think that’s how it was named). I haven’t updated to 10.3.8 yet.
February 10th, 2005 at 4:51 pm
Jim, I stumbled across your site via Technorati, when this post showed up on the Apple tag page. Anyway, thanks for the clarification. I need to fire up PHP and see if I have any similar problems. I don’t run a server but I use PHP-on-OS X occasionally for website testing.
February 10th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
No problem at all. As I said in the post it came down to a compatibility problem with Zend Optimizer and the PHP update — I’ve had no trouble with the client version of OS X.
February 10th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
I’ve seen some issues with the security update and 4.3.10. The problem is that OSX PHP was ancient, so a lot of people had put the entropy package (or compiled PHP themselves) to update OSX and OSX server. The update appears to aggressively enable the built-in PHP, which has caused some grief for some people.
4.3.10 is a great, and necessary, update to PHP, so the pain is worth it.
February 10th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
That is exactly what happened to me, Todd. I had updated PHP myself and the update messed with everything — as you said it agressively enabled the built-in PHP. Fixing that allowed access to the proper database and updating Zend brought the rest back.
The update definitely needed to be done, but it was scary for a little while.