From Zero to Legacy Lab — Vol. 1: PHP Legacy Lab

You inherited a legacy PHP system. Now what? Stop guessing — start reproducing.

You inherited an old PHP system. No documentation. No one to ask. And you need to understand it — fast.

This e-book gives you a reproducible lab to run legacy PHP systems in a controlled environment, with method — not guesswork.

What you will build:

• Isolated VM (Ubuntu + VirtualBox) with fixed IP

• Docker Compose stack with PHP 5.6, PHP 7.4, and MySQL 5.7

• phpMyAdmin for quick database inspection

• Two real case studies: HMS (CodeIgniter) and ChurchCRM (plain PHP)

• Operational scripts: start, stop, backup, restore, bootstrap

• Healthchecks to catch the "container is running but service is broken" trap

The method: Reproduce first. Then diagnose. Then decide.

If you can reproduce the environment → you can measure effort. If you can measure effort → you can make technical and business decisions. No more flying blind.

Author: Wesley Oliveira — Software Engineer, 30+ years in banking and payments systems (Banco do Brasil, FIS, ACI Worldwide)