Serious Concern not sure what to do: forced PHP upgrade

[jmberman]

I am using Zen Cart v1.5.4
Which uses PHP 5.6

Well, I just received this email from my host:

Hi, DreamHoster!

We've got some important news about PHP and your Virtual Private Server! As of December 2019, the PHP project has ended support for PHP 7.1. Versions lower than 7.1 have also been end-of-lifed prior to that date, and any bugs or security vulnerabilities discovered in these older versions are no longer being fixed.

According to our records, at least one domain currently hosted on your VPS is configured to use PHP 7.1 or lower. This poses a significant risk to your sites, as security updates for these versions are no longer available.

To improve the overall security of your VPS environment, we'll begin phasing out unsupported versions of PHP for VPS servers later this year. We will be upgrading domains from older PHP versions (7.1 and below) to PHP 7.2 at that time.


So what do I need to do to make sure my store still works after the change?

[lat9]

Upgrade to zc156c.

https://www.zen-cart.com/upgrade

[jmberman]

Upgrade to zc156c.

I'm a little terrified it's going to destroy my store O_O

[swguy]

Then hire it done. It's part of the deal with an open source cart. It's not optional.

[jmberman]

Yeah looks like I'll be hiring someone to do the work. thanks.

[mc12345678]

Practice the upgrade using backups of the live site in whatever environment allows you to make mistakes without affecting your live site that also maintains the safety and security of your content (e.g. Down for maintenance for anyone but those that should have access.)

[jmberman]

I found a highly rated guy on peopleperhour to do all the work for me so I don't have to worry and can just focus on my work.