PHP 5.4.43, 5.5.27 and 5.6.11

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.43, 5.5.27 and 5.6.11 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

In addition, ionCube Loader has been updated to the current version 5.0.14.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Brief scheduled maintenance on July 9, 2015 for web11 & web12 servers (completed)

Between 10:00 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time on Thursday, July 9, the “web11” and “web12” servers will be restarted. This will cause a brief interruption of service (less than 10 minutes) for sites on these two servers at some point during this 2 hour period. No other servers will be affected.

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PHP 5.4.42, 5.5.26 and 5.6.10

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.42, 5.5.26 and 5.6.10 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

In addition, ionCube Loader has been updated to the current version 5.0.10.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Brief scheduled maintenance on June 6, 2015 for web13 & web14 servers (completed)

Between 10:00 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time on Saturday, June 6, the “web13” and “web14” servers will be restarted. This will cause a brief interruption of service (less than 10 minutes) for sites on these two servers at some point during this 2 hour period. No other servers will be affected.

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PHP 5.4.41, 5.5.25 and 5.6.9

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.41, 5.5.25 and 5.6.9 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

In addition, ionCube Loader has been updated to the current version 5.0.6.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Mailman mailing list software upgraded to version 2.1.20; Mailman 3 status

The authors of the Mailman mailing list software we provide for customers have recently released versions 2.1.19 and 2.1.20 to fix several bugs.

We’ve upgraded the Mailman software on our servers from version 2.1.18 to 2.1.20 as a result.

Users of Mailman lists shouldn’t notice any changes, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or see any problems.

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Disabling SSLv3 and TLS 1.0

If you use an SSL certificate on a site you host with us, we now offer more control over the SSL/TLS protocol versions your site uses.

Old protocol versions, including SSL version 3 (“SSLv3”) and TLS version 1.0, are no longer considered secure. You can now disable these to improve security, at the expense of preventing some older, less-secure browsers from making SSL or TLS connections. Some credit card companies are starting to require that SSLv3 and TLS 1.0 both be disabled.

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PHP 5.4.40, 5.5.24 and 5.6.8

The PHP developers recently released versions 5.4.40, 5.5.24 and 5.6.8 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded PHP 5.4, 5.5 and 5.6 on our servers as a result.

These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.

In addition, the company that makes the Zend Guard Loader software has finally released versions compatible with PHP 5.5 and 5.6, so we’ve made that option available in the “PHP Settings” area of our My Account control panel (with all the usual caveats about why encoded scripts are inherently unreliable).

Brief MySQL scheduled maintenance May 1, 2015 (completed)

Between 9:00 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time on Friday May 1 2015, the MySQL database software on each of our servers will be upgraded from version 5.5.41 to 5.5.43. This will cause an approximately 60 second interruption of service on each MySQL-using customer Web site at some point during this period.

This upgrade is necessary for security reasons. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes.

Update 9:43 PM Pacific time: The maintenance was completed as planned and all services are running normally.

Protection against the WordPress “large comment” security bug

The authors of WordPress today released version 4.2.1 that fixes a critical security bug.

While upgrading is always a good idea, we’ve blocked the attack for all versions of WordPress on all sites that we host. We’ve also verified using our MySQL binary logs that no sites were attacked before we started the blocking.

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