nicorellius's questions

I am not new to Apache but nor am I an expert (by any means). I've run sveral versions of WAMP and XAMP server set-ups. Most of my Apache configurations are simple. I usually run a default master configuration file (httpd.conf or apache.conf) and one or two includes (with a different port, for example) and some site-specific virtual host files.

Recently, I set up a server to use HTTPS. I bought certificate and set it up. It wasn't too bad, but it got me thinking. Each Apache configuration I set up seems to be a bit different. I don't apply any best practices; just bits and pieces built up from a default installation using only those changes to make my application run.

This is now bothering me. I run Apache 2.2 currently and I would like to adopt a convention for myself with which I can keep consistent, one that I could more easily deploy to more servers in a quicker fashion.

So my question is, what files should I use and how should they interact? For example, I think most people agree that loading up your main Apache configuration with tweaks is a bad idea. So should you strip it down to the bare minimum and implement multiple includes? How do you properly set up the sites-available directory (sites-enabled filled with symlinks)? Because there are many ways to do things and since Apache allows for directives to be used in multiple places with the same affect, I find that bits and pieces get spread out over all these files, including using something like mod_rewrite in an .htaccess file (which I'm starting to believe is a bad idea unless you are on shared hosting where that's the only way).

For SSL, do you set up a default-ssl file or project-ssl. How many virtual hosts do I run on one server?

I understand that my question is somewhat subjective. There is probably not an objective answer. But my my goal is to get as close to an objective answer as possible.

Then there is WSGI. If you deploy Django sites, this further complicates things. Should I use /home/user/project/project/wsgi.py or /var/www/project/index.wsgi? How do these files interact with the Apache configuration?

Here is a list of files that I'm concerned with:

/etc/apache2/apache.conf
/etc/apache2/httpd.conf
/etc/apache2/ports.conf
/etc/apache2/envvars (mostly self explanatory)
/etc/apache2/conf.d/project.conf
/etc/apache2/conf.d/security
/etc/apache2/sites-available/default
/etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl
/etc/apache2/sites-available/project
/etc/apache2/sites-available/project-ssl

Why do some Apache installations have an Apache main configuration with modules included and others have mods-available and mods-enabled?

Like I said above, there seems to be a lot of overlap so I'm not surprised that this is a tricky topic to master.

Alternatively, if anyone knows a good reference that steps through this, I'd be interested in seeing it. I have a couple older Apache books and they just don't break it down. They assume you are complete beginner and that you leave the default alone. The Apache docs are pretty good and I go to them often, but a comprehensive source for what I'm looking for doesn't seem to exist (or, I haven't found the best search terms to find it).

I manage a smallish network that supports a dozen or so employees. We have about 8 TB of data that lives on several NAS devices. I built a 20 TB RAID file server (with a XFS single partition) recently and we are migrating to this.

The current devices are heterogeneous in their permissions: some storage is internal hard drives mounted on Windows 7; some is a Drobo attached by USB to Ubuntu; and a couple others are Snap Servers, which run their own version of UNIX.

Unfortunately, the network workstations are also heterogeneous, as well. We have Linux, Mac OS and Windows XP/Vista/7/8. This has caused a bit of confusion amongst the users in terms of permissions. As a result, I have basically made storage pretty loose, against my better judgement.

With this new system, the array is mounted on a Linux system and all the storage will be on this device. Thus, I have an opportunity to set it up correctly the first time.

This is where my question comes in. What is the best way to do this? Should I create users for everyone (in a group) on network and force them to connect with these credentials? Should I set the permissions to 777 and keep it open? Or is there a better way to accomplish some level of security but also make it easy for my users to have read/write access to the share?

EDIT

From comment, I'd like to update for clarity. I'm sharing with Samba. And the kind of problem I'm seeing is ownership of files and folders.

For example, if I create users (in a group) on the server that correspond to each users' credentials on their workstations, this works OK for permissions, eg, everyone can access and edit files but the ownership is different for files/folders each user created. This causes a problem, since the share should really be writeable by all users, and each user is given the OK to delete folders at their discretion.

On my production server, things are fine: PHP extension removal and trailing slash rules are in place in my .htaccess file.

But locally, this isn't working (well, partially, anyway). I'm running Apache2 with a virtual host for the site in question. I decided to not use the .htaccess file in this case and just add the rules to the httpd-vhosts.conf file instead, which, I've heard, if possible on your server, is a better way to go.

The virtual host is working and the URL I use for my site is like this:

devserver:9090

Here is my httpd-vhosts.conf file:

NameVirtualHost *:9090

# for stuff other than this site
<VirtualHost *:9090>
    ServerAdmin admin@localhost
    DocumentRoot "/opt/lampstack/apache2/htdocs"
    ServerName localhost
</VirtualHost>

# for site in question
<VirtualHost *:9090>
    ServerAdmin admin@localhost
    DocumentRoot "/opt/lampstack/apache2/htdocs/devserver"
    ServerName devserver

    <Directory "/opt/lampstack/apache2/htdocs/devserver">
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes
        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>

    <IfModule rewrite_module>
        RewriteEngine ON    

        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
        RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}.php -f
        RewriteRule (.*)/$ /$1.php

    </IfModule>

    # error docs
    ErrorDocument 404 /errors/404.php

</VirtualHost>

The problem I'm facing is that when I go to directories on the site, I get a 404 error. So for example, this:

devserver:9090/page.php

goes to

devserver:9090/page/

but going to a directory (that has an index.php):

devserver:9090/dir/

throws 404 error page.

If I type in devserver:9090/dir/index.php I get devserver:9090/dir/index/ and the contents I want appear...

Can anyone help me with my rewrite rules?

NOTE

See my answer below

50 points to anyone who can shed additional light on this answer. I started a bounty and then found my answer but am still learning so any good tips can be worth +50.

I have a domain for my site:

example.com

I am also running local DNS with these lines:

www IN CNAME server.<host_provider>.com.
dev IN CNAME server.<host_provider>.com.

So www.example.com and dev.example.com go to production and development sites, respectively, that are hosted by a host company.

In my Apache configuration for the main site, I'm running a rewrite rule like this:

RewriteEngine ON
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$|!dev\.example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www\.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=302,L,NE]

This rule seems to work, as when you are off the network and go to example.com in the browser, you get redirected to www.example.com.

The problem is when I'm on the network, and I go to example.com I get an error page, saying page can't be found. No server errors; just a page can't be found, as if the local DNS is causing it to stop looking at that point.

I'm also using Nettica for DNS service and have this A record in place:

example.com Host (A) Default xxx.xx.xxx.xx

This handles the external DNS, but my problem seems to be related to my internal DNS.

For example, inside my network, I can go to servers on the network with addresses like this:

server.example.com server1.example.com server2.example.com

These are configured in my local DNS. I'm just not sure how to get past the "empty" subdomain and go to example.com.

Adding to this since it might not be clear. If I'm out side the example.com network, on another network, like example123.com, then when I go to example.com I'm redirected to www.example.com as expected, eg, the Apache rewrite rule is working.

EDIT

With the help of @ErikE and troubleshootinig and testing, I found an answer. Seems I discovered another way along with @ErikE's suggestion:

In local DNS adding either one of these seems to work:

example.com IN CNAME server.<host_provider>.com.
example.com IN CNAME www.example.com.

Thanks.

Not sure how to fix this but here is the description. I can run the command to a Lampstack MySQL installation like this and it works:

/opt/lampstack/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p

And my PATH variable has this path in it, but yet this command doesn't work:

mysql -u root -p

Gives this error:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

The command asks for password but then gives the error.

I should note as well that running phpMyAdmin works fine at localhost:9090 with root and correct password.

Presumably, there are two MySQL installations getting confused, because I can run each command with --version and I get two distributions: 5.5.32 and 5.5.21.

This is a problem because I'm trying to use the Lampstack MySQL installation for a Django project. I have this configuration running on Windows but in an attempt to duplicate the environment on Ubuntu I've gotten a bit mixed up.

What is the best way to resolve this issue without removing the core MySQL on the Ubuntu system (and use the Lampstack one)?

NOTE

I discovered that the /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock doesn't actually exist and nor does the directory /var/run/mysqld. I'm not sure how to fix this so any assistance is appreciated.

I have a CRM on a server on a network. We have a static IP and another server outward facing. We use port-forwarding to map to the CRM, so that when you go to the IP or the FQDN, you get to the CRM:

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

crm.example.com

Internally, we can access the CRM by going to

crm

or

crm.example.com

Lately, I've been noticing that accessing the server from outside the network times out or gives 503, bad gateway. During that time, I can also SSH (different port, so this works) into the outward facing computer and access the server just fine.

I have a robot monitoring the site and indeed via HTTP monitoring the site is going down periodically.

I looked through the Apache server access and error logs and nothing stuck out at me so I'm a bit confused as to what could be going on. I also searched the access logs for 503 and found nothing.

When I run tracert from outside the network, it appears the packets basically make it through the wider area servers (Comcast city and county servers) and end up dropping at the CRM server's front step.

I'm tempted to replace the server because it is older and underpowered but it would be nice to know what is going on.

Any ideas what to do next?

EDIT

Thanks for the feedback from everyone. This question is definitely vague, because I don't have much evidence to show. But I can say that to my knowledge there are no proxy servers on our network. If there are, I don't know about them or their configuration.

Also, the reason I mentioned port forwarding and SSH is because when these intermittent outages are happening, I can SSH into the server associated with the static IP. We just use port forwarding to access to CRM, because it's on another server.

I also have a DNS/DHCP server running and have gone through the configuration and nothing it out of the ordinary. The rest of the network is fine and ever since this intermittent trouble began, the CRM server configuration has been the same. This is one of those "nothing changed (to my knowledge) scenarios" so it's a bit tricky to troubleshoot. Plus, I'm not an expert in networking so I really don't know all what could be going on.

I will definitely go over what has been mentioned so far and try to solve the problem.

I'm looking for a set of simple rules and redirects for my site. I've tried so many combinations that I'm starting to get confused.

I'm not sure how to set this up. Generally, without mod-rewrite, I would use relative paths to link to files:

<a href="link.php">Link</a>

if it's in the same directory.

Now I'd like to use this:

<a href="link">Link</a>

And so if you go to this page:

localhost/mysite/link

it will take you to the correct place, which would be:

localhost/mysite/link.php

But also, many directory levels deep I would like it to work as well:

localhost/mysite/group/link2

would go to:

localhost/mysite/group/link2.php

and:

localhost/mysite/group/section/link3

would go to:

localhost/mysite/group/section/link3.php

But then in all these cases, if someone were to type in this:

localhost/mysite/group/section/link3.php

in the URL bar, it would show this:

localhost/mysite/group/section/link3

Thanks

EDIT

I think part of the problem I was having was that I had these directories in my site root:

product1, product2, product3

and I also had these files in a directory called products:

product1.php, product2.php, product3.php

The .htaccess file wasn't working until I changed these file names to something else, that was not the same as the directory names. Does this make sense? Is this expected behavior?

EDIT 2

I'm sure someone will come to this post looking for similar help as I did when I wrote this question. There are many good answers on mod_rewrite both here and on stackoverflow.com. I recommend reading through those and trying out these conditions and rules on a test instance to get the hang of them.

I realized also that using frequent browser cache clears and activating the RewriteLog is essential to figuring this stuff out. For example:

RewriteLog "rewrite.log" RewriteLogLevel 7

Have fun

I have an solid state drive that I develop websites on. The reason I do this is because I work on a few different computers. Historically, I created separate developing environments to use for each machine. This was OK, but if the system changed for some reason, eg, new OS install, it was a pain. So I bought a USB 3.0 enclosure and put a solid state drive in there and it's pretty darn fast, which is good.

I was working with three Windows machines and I could simply hook up the drive, launch my XAMPP server and away I went, developing websites: using Dreamweaver, Komodo, Notepad++, Eclipse, etc.

Recently, however, one of my Windows machines' hard drive went down and instead of going back to Windows in this case, I went with Ububntu 12.04. I have several Ubuntu workstations and servers and I like Linux, so I thought his was a great opportunity to transition.

I went to work installing and trying to set up a LAMP server and, besides from XAMPP 64-bit compatibility out of the box, I'm seeing other issues with getting this Linux server running. I will keep trying to resolve this, but in the meantime...

my question is, has anyone ever successfully run both WAMP and LAMP from the same SSD (formatted to NTFS)? I'm sure there are lots of barriers to this happening, like local file system, OS libraries, dependencies, etc. But I was thinking it would be cool if it could be done.

I'm no expert, so if this is just plain old stupid, please don't hesitate to let me know.

I'm starting to not like 1and1.com that much. I've used them for years, but mainly for simple sites without much need for configuration. I know there are better hosting companies out and I may go seeking them.

The problem here is that on my Local XAMPP server (sitting on a network with Comcast ISP), I have a PHP script that uses PEAR::Mail to send mail using MIME. The script works find locally with either smtp.1and1.com and corresponding credentials and smtp.gmail.com with corresponding credentials, using appropriate ports, etc.

1and1 tells me that I have to change the MX record on the domain where this script runs in order to make this work. This doesn't make sense to me.

Versions:

PEAR Version: 1.5.0
PHP Version: 4.4.9
Zend Engine Version: 1.3.0

I understand that the systems (servers) are very much different (thanks to nojak for bringing this up; my original question was vague). The OSes, PHP versions, and probably many other configurations are quite different. My main question is if PEAR and PHP have the email functionality in both cases and my script works on my local setup, what kind of things will make the 1and1 servers not work? I'm looking for other troubleshooting to try.

My apologies in advance for my ignorance. Thanks for the help in advance.

EDIT

Here is my function:

require_once('Mail.php');
require('Mail/mime.php');

function send_form_mail($body) {

    $from = "<***>";
    $to = "<***>";
    $subject = $body[0];
    $host = "smtp.1and1.com";
    $port = "587";
    $username = "***";
    $password = "***";

    $headers = array(
        'From' => $from,
        'To' => $to,
        'Subject' => $subject
    );

    $smtp = Mail::factory('mail', array(
        'host' => $host,
        'port' => $port,
        'auth' => true,
        'username' => $username,
        'password' => $password
    ));

    $text_field_array = array(
        '',
        ''
    );

    for ($i = 1, $size = sizeof($body) + 1; $i < $size; $i++) {      
        $text_body .= $text_field_array[$i] . $body[$i] . '\n';
    }

    $html_field_array = array(
        '',
        ''
    );

    for ($i = 1, $size = sizeof($body) + 1; $i < $size; $i++) {          
        $html_body .= $html_field_array[$i] . $body[$i] . '<br />';
    }

    $mime = new Mail_mime();
    $mime -> setTXTBody($text_body);
    $mime -> setHTMLBody($html_body);

    $email_body = $mime -> get(); 
    $headers = $mime -> headers($headers);

    $mail = $smtp -> send($to, $headers, $email_body);

    if (PEAR::isError($mail)) {
        echo("<p>We've encountered and an error: " . $mail -> getMessage() . "</p>");
    }
}

Please note that I starred out sensitive characters in function above.

Here are the main points 1and1 shared with me:

1. Told me PEAR Mail wouldn't work
2. I tested this and it did, so the first tech was incorrect
3. Via email, got a test script from them using PEAR
4. Tested it and it worked, but no SMTP
5. Then, they gave me other SMTP servers
6. Tested these and they worked as well, but still without SMTP
7. I asked why couldn't I just use other email servers, like smtp.gmail.com
8. Then, they told me I had to change my MX record
9. I then asked why since I didn't want to do this yet and that I wanted to just use another SMTP server
10. They told me that this wasn't possible
11. I began getting confused and came here for help

I have an Apache server listening on port 9999. I can verify this by running an SSH tunnel (with port forward of L9595 192.168.5.227:9999) through PuTTY such that from a remote IP I can access this server through the localhost:

localhost:9595

I have a DNS hostname for my dynamic IP that looks like this:

server.hostname.org

And I have a firewall with a rule allowing for traffic through port 9999. My problem is I can't access the server here:

server.hostname.org:9999

The firewall rule should be correct as I modeled it after other rules that successfully allow traffic. I can access the main firewall server through:

https://server.hostname.org

Any help is much appreciated.

So I have two APC UPS devices: Back-UPS ES 500 and 725. These two UPSes work fine but recently we had an extended outage and both of our servers connected to these UPSes shutdown and one of them had a RAID Drobo that suffered disk damage.

Now I need to figure out how to make both of these machines shutdown gracefully when the batteries in the UPSes get low. I am looking at APCUPSD from this post:

Configuring power outage shutdown via APC UPS's

I like the program but I have some weird issues. I'm not sure how to connect these UPSes to the Ubuntu servers. The UPSes both have phone jacks (for protection) and one network jack for, presumably, communication. The ES 725 has two coaxial jacks as well.

Am I to assume that I need some kind of network to USB cable for communication between my servers and these UPSes? Any hints or feedback would be very appreciated.

I need a web server for static web content, a corporate blog and the company e-commerce system. I have some ideas, but thought of seeking additional feedback from the world's best server pros!

NOTE 1 - the company has around 300 customers, and revenues around $1 Million. Let's see, several hundred users a day, downloading and otherwise viewing our site. I'm hoping the new server will help us boost traffic so I want to give myself something to grow into. So far, I'm looking at something lie:

8-core Opteron
16-32 GB RAM
4 x 1 TB drives (some kind of RAID)
Gigabit LAN

Am I on the right track?

NOTE 2 - This is what I went with:

• Rackform nServ A161
• Opteron 6128 2.0GHz, 8-Core
• 16GB (4 x 4GB) Operating at 1333MHz Max (DDR3-1333
• 2 x Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet Controllers
• Integrated IPMI 2.0 with Dedicated LAN
• LSI 9260-4i 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID
• 4 X 1TB Seagate Constellation ES Optical Drive:
• Low-Profile DVD+/-RW Drive Power
• 350W Power Supply

I'm running Sugar Pro, version 5.5.4, on Ubuntu 9.10, Apache 2.2, MySQL 5.1.28, and PHP 5.2.10.

I have a module called Process Manager setup and running. I can manually make this go, to send email when new leads are created, and even use filters. So the functionality works.

But as soon as I create a Scheduler to make this go, I run into problems. My "user" crontab is:

* * * * * cd /var/www/sugarcrm; php -f cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

And the Scheduler is set to run every minute of every day. But when I create a new lead with the filter field correct, there is no email after several minutes of waiting.

After 5 minutes or so, I can go to the Process Manager module, click on "Run Process Manager" and the email appears seconds later.

Any help much appreciated.

Running Ubuntu 9.10, Apache 2.2, MySQL 5.1.37, PHP 5.2.10, SugarCRM Pro 5.5.4

I started out by trying to use a Sugar function call Scheduler and Sugar complained:

This system does not have the cURL libraries enabled/compiled into the PHP module (--with-curl=/path/to/curl_library). Please contact your administrator to resolve this issue. ``Without the cURL functionality, the Scheduler cannot thread its jobs.

I confirmed curl, libcurl packages are installed on the system.

But now I am having trouble finding out what file to point to in the php.ini file. Some forums say I need a php_curl.so file (similar to the php_curl.dll in Windows) but I can only find curl.so. Where do I change the extension_dir=/path/to/libraries to point to?

Since I don't have a php_curl.so file, should I make the extension= to curl.so?

Some output when I restarted my apache2 is here:

PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './php_curl.so' - ./php_curl.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './curl.so' - ./curl.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './gd.so' - ./gd.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './mcrypt.so' - ./mcrypt.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './mysql.so' - ./mysql.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './mysqli.so' - ./mysqli.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './pdo.so' - ./pdo.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library './pdo_mysql.so' - ./pdo_mysql.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0

Any help is greatly appreciated!

I have a CRM on an old Fedora server, running Apache 2.2.6, MySQL 5.0.27, and PHP 5.1.6. I see a couple of options to fix my problem, but I thought I would consult the pros on this one here at Server Fault to see if I'm missing anything. This is after spending a good while searching the net for solutions.

Option 1

Upgrade Fedora, step-wise, to Fedora 7 and then to 8, and then the PHP packages I need would be available. I know this is hazardous, because of repository location, dependencies, etc.

Option 2

Upgrade using this method. This may or may not work, and so would be considered a crap shoot.

I consulted some IT people and they say the best best is to back up data and build a new server with updated hard and software. I happen to agree, but wanted to exhaust all my resources first.

Ubuntu 10.04, MySQL 5.1, Apache 2.2, and PHP 5.2/5.3:

I just discovered that I am using the wrong version of PHP for a CRM application. Once I figured out how to make a simple phpinfo() script to tell me what Apache2 is using, I tried changing the php.ini such that my webserver would use the PHP I want. Well, this is my problem. Not sure how to do that.

I compiled the version of PHP I want to /etc here:

/etc/php-5.2.8/

Inside this, there was a php.ini-recommended file that I made some changes to and renamed to php.ini so PHP would use it. But when I opened my browser and cleared my history and went to the http://localhost<CRM dir>/install.php address, the wizard still says I'm not usign the correct version of PHP.

Based on this post what do I have to do to change the version of PHP that shows up after I run my test.php script? In other words, phpinfo() says I'm running PHP 5.3.2, but I want to change it to my compiled 5.2.8 version located in /etc.

The Apache2 server and PHP version seem to be in order, but when I launch the CRM installer at

http://localhost/<CRM dir>/install.php

The wizard says I need a minimum of PHP 5.1 and preferably PHP 5.2.x. The thing is, I am running PHP 5.2.8, and I know this from running

php --version

Plus, I spent a bunch of time learning how and (I thought, successfully) compiling PHP 5.2.8. It is quite likely I screwed up and don't have some libraries I need, but I'm not sure where to look first.

Thanks in advance.

PS - I know some of you will suggest going to the CRM's forums... I tried this; these are not good. I much prefer the expertise I get here on the Stack Exchange sites.

I am trying to install a CRM on a Linux (Ubuntu 10.04) laptop to do some testing. Installing the current versions of Apache, MySQL and PHP, and getting the CRM to run is easy. It's when I try to go backwards and run it on a previous set of versions I run into problems. This is what I have done:

I have installed Apache 2.2.14, MySQL 5.0.83, and PHP 5.2.8. When I type something like mysql --version I get back what I would expect: version and distribution info. The same goes for Apache2 and PHP. The Apache server is running and so is mysqld.

So when I go to my browser and look at http://localhost/<CRM dir>/install.php Firefox offers to open the PHP file or save it, as if it doesn't recognize the file. What should happen is that I should get a welcome page and the installation wizard for this CRM distribution should start. I have tried so many different things I probably screwed up something along the way. I have restarted the servers over and over, and even recompiled the versions of MySQL and PHP with no problems. I am hoping I am overlooking something simple because I am lost. Any help is appreciated.

I trying to find the best way to upgrade from PHP 5.1 to 5.3. The CRM software I am running on this server requires this upgrade or else I probably wouldn't even perform it, because it seems like it's going to be perhaps trickier than I hoped it would be. Being still new to the programming world, these routine upgrades are still worrisome to me.

I am running apache 2.2.6 (Fedora), PHP 5.1.6 and MySQL 5.0.27 on this server.

Is it possible to upgrade to Fedora 11 and still keep the server functional (it's running Fedora Core release 6 now, with MySQL 5.0, PHP 5.1 and Apache 2.2)? I have a Customer Relationship Management system on there and it is required on a daily basis. I am trying to figure out if I should upgrade (and whether that will cause huge problems) or if I should start over with a new OS (like Ubuntu) and install the CRM fresh, with updated version of MySQL, PHP, Apache, etc. I ask because I am not really the sysadmin, but have but put in charge of this server.