Cloud Update November 2019

A quick update on MODX Cloud including important upcoming changes that could affect your experience in MODX Cloud, system updates and news about MODX 3.

By Ryan Thrash  |  November 27, 2019  |  3 min read
Cloud Update November 2019

We wanted to give you a quick update on MODX Cloud. First, some important upcoming changes that could affect your experience in MODX Cloud:

  • IBM is updating how portable IPs can be used in their infrastructure. This will affect most users with Clouds on the paas1.tx, paas2.tx, paas1.ams and paas2.ams platforms. (All other platforms including paas3.tx, FRA, LON, SYD, and private servers are unaffected.) If you are affected, look for an email outlining a brief expected downtime in the future when the VLANs are re-routed. That said, downtime can be avoided entirely by updating the DNS for sites on these servers to point to IP addresses that also resolve to the same platforms:
    • paas1.tx: 75.126.220.30 > 173.193.182.146
    • paas2.tx: 75.126.220.28 > 173.193.182.147
    • paas1.ams: 37.58.69.136 > 5.153.5.164
    • paas2.ams: 37.58.69.139 > 5.153.5.163
  • In line with the promise to keep your sites secure, PHP 7.1 is being removed in early January as it will no longer be maintained as of Dec 1, 2019. We are unaware of issues with MODX websites running 7.2 or 7.3, so this is a great time to tidy up including upgrading to the latest version of MODX Revolution, upgrading your Extras, and switching to PHP 7.3 to start things off right in 2020. If you run into any problems, please open a ticket with support.
  • Speaking of PHP, PHP 7.4 is coming to Cloud after it's released on Nov 28, 2019. We will start internal testing and QA in December with a broad release as soon as feasible.
  • MODX 3.0-alpha is coming soon in Cloud so you can start testing site upgrades, Extras, and exploring the improved UX. Look for a blog post soon that covers the 3.0 release process as we finally hit the major milestone of an official alpha build.
  • And finally, the core/ directory in Flex clouds will no longer be blocked from being accessible from the public web by default (looking at you, Drupal installation) sometime in December. If you rely on that for manual MODX installs, you can simply add it to your web rules. Reach out to support if you require help on this front.

And two more details to keep you informed:

  • PHP (7.1.x, 7.2.x and 7.3.x) and MySQL (the Percona-flavor of 5.7.x) have been updated to the latest stable versions. Customers have inquired about using the native JSON features in MySQL which is now possible with the current version in Cloud. An update to Nginx 1.16 in-progress for the coming week.
  • A CDN/WAF Add-on powered by StackPath was quietly introduced. A Content Delivery Network (CDN) speeds up your sites—a lot—by serving images, CSS, JS and other static files from edge locations close to your site visitors. A Web Application Firewall (WAF) helps protect your sites from common exploits, DoS attacks, vulnerability probes, and other malicious or unwanted traffic. To enable this functionality for your account, go to your account > Add-on page and pick an appropriate bandwidth level starting at just $20, then enable it on each site you wish from their individual Add-ons pages.

We look forward to future updates and bringing you additional features to help you run your sites faster and better than ever before.