Re: Advice on checking apps before upgrading from 5.1.73 to 5.5

[Peter Brawley]

> Someone has suggested testing on a local server
> but I've no idea whatsoever what that involves,
> and wouldn't trust myself anyway to know I'd tested properly.

If you've contracted to support these sites, you really have just two choices--hire a mysql/php person to set up a test server for the apps in question, or learn how to do it yourself. The former will be quicker, but from the latter, you'll learn how to do it yourself quickly next time, which is relevant because eventually it will happen for most mysql-driven sites you support.

If your host runs mysql and php with apache web server, you can reproduce that functionality simply on a local 'puter by installing XAMP or WAMP, then copying in the webapps and test-running them. If the apps are written for a particular web server environment (many are), they may depend on literal path arguments that are specific to your present web environment. In that case you'll need to tinker with the files and adjust them to the test environment. That's where experience comes in, so you may need help with this.

The alternative---a necessity for professional providers---is to mount a full-fledged test server which replicates the production environment.