Future CMSB Requirements: PHP v5.4 and MySQL v5.5

Hi All, 

In the next few releases we're going to increase the requirements for CMSB to: PHP v5.4 and MySQL v5.5

And starting with the next release there will be a warning of this upcoming change at the top of Admin > General for any users that don't have those versions.  It will look like this:

Security Notice: You are currently running old and unsupported server software that no longer receives security updates. To avoid being exposed to unpatched security vulnerabilities and to ensure compatibility with future CMS releases, please upgrade at your earliest convenience.

• Upgrade to PHP v5.4 or newer (Your server is running PHP v5.2.4)
• Upgrade to MySQL v5.5 or newer (Your server is running MySQL v5.0.37)

More information:
PHP Supported Versions: http://php.net/supported-versions.php
MySQL Supported Versions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL#Versions

We've basically always supported very very old versions of PHP and MySQL, because that's what web hosts had installed and we wanted to make sure our software ran everywhere.  But with security breaches, hacks, and internet wide bugs becoming the new normal we've decided we're going to take further steps to protect our customers.  

Our new policy will be that we only support products (PHP and MySQL) that are still receiving security updates.  So once a version is so old that not even the vendor supports it or provides security patches anymore, we're going to update our software to not support it either.  

These old software version do have security bugs in them, and while it's a hassle to upgrade, but it's even more of a hassle to try and restore a hacked site from a backup (that you hopefully have).  This might mean you need to do some work to upgrade a bit more frequently, and some of your client sites will need to be upgraded (which could be billable work) and some of you might need to even need to switch web hosts.  That said, it's more important then ever to keep current with security updates.

And... I'll share that our own site is a few versions behind, so we'll be going through that upgrade ourselves.  

And lastly, this only applies to upgrades and new installs.  Whatever you have installed right now will continue to work the way it always has.  Although I do recommend upgrading if you're running outdated software.

Please feel free to post any feedback, questions or comments.  Thanks!