Upgrade php 5.2 to php 5.3 on debian etch

I have a vps server that is in production currently. I need to upgrade my current php 5.2 to php 5.3.

I have found the repositories here http://www.dotdeb.org

My question is how do I upgrade, keeping my current configuration?

You need only to add the repositories from dotdeb on the /etc/apt/sources.list file. Then use aptitude to reload the sources and check the php packages you have.

If the packages are correctly done, you should not lose any config, since configuration files are not overwritten during updates: if there's a conflict dpkg will ask what to do and you can choose to override or just save the new version with a different extension.

After that, just check the README.Debian on /usr/share/doc/ package documentation to see if there's anything else to complete the upgrade.

deb http://packages.dotdeb.org stable all
deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org stable all
deb http://php53.dotdeb.org stable all
deb-src http://php53.dotdeb.org stable all

gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv-key 89DF5277
gpg -a --export 89DF5277 | sudo apt-key add -

Now we have to update apt-get update

Then you can easily upgrade..

and restart apache, and test if everything is working , by checking phpinfo() btw..how did you install php previously ?? if you had compiled it manually ..the above method is not the best way ..

It's not supported by DotDeb

For your information, I do NOT intend to publish PHP>=5.3.0 packages for Debian Etch, it would mean too much work to get clean packages… PHP 5.2.10 (once fixed) will be last version available for Etch from Dotdeb. Then, you’re strongly encouraged to migrate to Debian Lenny if you want to take profit from 5.3.0.

Source