Web Environment Version Standards

The RIT Web Environment is managed by Information and Technology Services (ITS). ITS continuously works to make sure that the environment is update to date and secure with the most recent version of supported software.  

Because of this, ITS needs to perform regular maintenance that could potentially adversely affect websites. ITS will communicate these updates in advance so that website owners know and are aware of the upgrades. It is up to website owners, stewards, and technical contacts to ensure that their websites are working properly after these upgrades.

Drupal

Drupal is the only ITS-supported content management system (CMS) available for use on the RIT web environment for official university websites. ITS performs quarterly maintenance for Drupal that ensures we are update to date and secure with recent versions. RIT's current Drupal version might differ from Drupal's official current version because RIT's quarterly update schedule.

Before performing updates, ITS communicates with university-approved developers to inform them of the updates and when they are scheduled to happen. With RIT's environment configuration, there is no downtime for users while updates are being performed and end-users will not be affected.

While ITS does plan for quarterly maintenance, there is sometimes security releases that requires ITS to update immediately to the newest version. 

PHP

ITS fully supports PHP on our web environment as many of our applications are dependent on it like Drupal. 

The current environment default for PHP on RIT's environment is PHP 8.2

  • PHP typically has 3 supported versions which can be found here
  • Each PHP version has a typical life span of support for 3 years.
  • RIT will install each version as it comes out for use. (Where each version of PHP X.Y is installed in /usr/local/phpXY )
  • The most recent version of PHP, PHP 8.3, is currently available in both our environments.at /usr/local/php83 
  • RIT will adopt the supported branch that is the middle of the three as the default branch shifting yearly
  • Currently, the mid-branch for the support PHP version is 8.2.
  • /usr/local/php5 will always be a link to the mid-branch support version of PHP. (php 8.2)
  • The PHP version that falls off the supported list will be removed and have that version link updated to the mid-branch version.  PHP 8.0 will be removed, and have the /usr/local/php version updated to link to /usr/local/php5