I'm trying to upgrade PHP on my Solaris Sparc server with no success.

This web log software has a new plug-in for helping reduce SPAM comments. Yes, this post is likely to have some script attempt to add some comment that is neither relevant or useful. Most often they'll say something lame like "nice site" and include a link to some porn, gambling, or "physical enhancement" site. As often as not, the URL is malformed, or the site has been removed before one can check it (the broken link gets reported). Additionally, these things come in by the dozens or worse, taking both time to process and space to store.

I had added a little bit of PHP script that generates a unique number each time a post is displayed, and the correct number is expected when the comment form is submitted. This fix required no user intervention, and cut down on the unreal comments by nearly 100%; now one has to actually visit the page to get the code embedded in the form instead of just submit a properly formatted HTTP request. I think my "fix" made it into the project!

This install of the software is the latest and greatest. It's pre-release, so I haven't expanded the installation to the other few sites on this server that also use it, but I probably will. One of the nice things it has available is CAPTCHA as an anti-spam tool. Most avid web browsers have seen it in action; a picture with words, letters, numbers, or some combination therein, skewed and discolored, perhaps over a "noisy" background is displayed, and the user is prompted to type the string in the form, to confirm they're actually reading it.

Sadly, and this is where the PHP is kicking me, the build of PHP that is running this site didn't have the font support necessary compiled in. The "standard" PHP API call used by the CAPTCHA script doesn't work on my installation, and getting the new one to compile is exposing a ton of other things that need to be added or upgraded in order for that to work. Something changed in PHP between 5.0.3 (running) and 5.1.6 (the attempted upgrade) that wants me to recompile my IMAP/POP3 server, SSL and SSH libraries (huh?), and gripes about the way MySQL was linked.

For all that is dynamic and open!