PHP 8.4 brings performance and security gains, but success depends on preparation. This owner-friendly checklist covers staging, updates, testing critical user journeys, cache/CDN considerations, and a clear rollback plan so your upgrade from PHP 8.3 goes smoothly.
Learn why PHP upgrades matter, how they affect your website’s security and performance, and what Reliable Penguin customers (and any PHP-powered site owner) should know to stay current and protected.
Transport Layer Security (TLS) encrypts traffic between your app and database, protecting credentials and data in transit. This guide shows how to enable and verify TLS for a CodeIgniter 4 app using the MySQLi driver against Amazon RDS/Aurora MySQL—whether you have root on the host or not. It also covers enforcing TLS at the database and common pitfalls. What you’ll do Download the Amazon RDS CA bundle Point CodeIgniter’s MySQLi connection at that CA Verify the connection is encrypted (with either MySQL or MariaDB clients) Optionally require TLS at the DB parameter group level 1) Get the Amazon RDS CA bundle Use either the global bundle (works for all commercial regions) or a region-specific bundle (e.g., us-east-1). Global (covers any commercial region): https://truststore.pki.rds.amazonaws.com/global/global-bundle.pem Regional example (N. Virginia): https://truststore.pki.rds.amazonaws.com/us-east-1/us-east-1-bundle.pem With root (system-wide location)
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sudo install -d -m 0755 /etc/ssl/certs sudo curl -fSLo /etc/ssl/certs/rds-combined-ca-bundle.pem \ https://truststore.pki.rds.amazonaws.com/global/global-bundle.pem sudo chmod 0644 /etc/ssl/certs/rds-combined-ca-bundle.pem |
Without root (per-site location, safe for Plesk)
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mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts/example.com/private/ssl/rds curl -fSLo /var/www/vhosts/example.com/private/ssl/rds/rds-combined-ca-bundle.pem \ https://truststore.pki.rds.amazonaws.com/global/global-bundle.pem chmod 0644 /var/www/vhosts/example.com/private/ssl/rds/rds-combined-ca-bundle.pem |
Sanity checks:
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grep -c "BEGIN CERTIFICATE" /path/to/rds-combined-ca-bundle.pem openssl crl2pkcs7 -nocrl -certfile /path/to/rds-combined-ca-bundle.pem \ | openssl pkcs7 -print_certs -noout | head |
Plesk note: if PHP has open_basedir
Great article on how to clear the PHP opcache: https://ma.ttias.be/how-to-clear-php-opcache/ To facilitate use on a Plesk server created script and mapped into namespace: https://acme.com/opcache_clear Here’s the script: And here’s the Apache config to map into a virtual host: This above config should be placed in the “Apache & nginx setting” screen in the “Additional directives for https” field. In addition to setting the alias path we’re also setting the PHP handler. Additionally under “Password protected directories” added password protection for “/opcache_clear”. This is just a placeholder for the password file which is referenced in the above config.
Applying the new SUPEE-7405 patch to Magento 1.7.0.2 (and probably other versions) results in a parse error in the sales order view page (admin/sales_order/view/order_id) if the site is running under PHP5.3. Here’s the error message:
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PHP message: PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[' in /app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Helper/Sales.php on line 124 |
The offending line is:
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$links = []; |
it can be changed to:
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$links = array(); |
PHP 5.3 does not support the “[]” syntax for array initialization. Of course you should not be running PHP 5.3!
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