Complete PHP Environment
PHP (stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, recursively) is one of the most popular programming languages for the web. PHP are used in more 7 million domains of one million IP addresses and still growing very fast.
PHP Installation on Our Server
Our PHP system sets us apart from other hosting providers. We configure PHP with these goals in mind: flexible, featureful and secure.
In our system, we install PHP modularly, by separating most its components from its core. We also install most available PHP extension. This will greatly enhance the capability of PHP while still minimizing the use of memory resource.
Below are our list of PHP modules that are installed on our servers. Please keep in mind that some modules are not available on some version of RedHat Linux we are using.
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| bcmath | BCMath arbitrary precision mathematics module |
| bz2 | Bzip2 compression module |
| calendar | Calendar module |
| ctype | Character type module |
| curl | Client URL library module |
| dba | Hash file (DBM or similar) abstraction layer module |
| dbase | dBase module |
| dbx | Database abstraction layer module |
| dio | Direct I/O Module |
| domxml | Document object model (DOM) module |
| exif | EXIF JPEG header module |
| filepro | Filepro database module |
| fribidi | Bidirectional text module |
| ftp | FTP module |
| gd | Image generation module |
| gettext | Native language support and internationalization module |
| gmp | GNU MP library for arbitrary precision arithmetic |
| iconv | Character set conversion module using IConv |
| imap | IMAP, POP3 and NNTP module |
| interbase | Interbase database module |
| ldap | LDAP client module |
| mcrypt | MCrypt encryption module |
| mhash | MHash hashing algorithm module |
| mime_magic | MIME type detection module |
| ming | Shockwave flash creation module using ming library |
| mnogosearch | MnogoSearch search engine module |
| mysql | MySQL database client module |
| ncurses | Ncurses terminal screen control module |
| odbc | UNIX ODBC module |
| overload | Object property and method call overloading module |
| pcntl | Process control functions module |
| pgsql | PostgreSQL database client module |
| posix | Module for accessing POSIX system interface |
| pspell | PSpell spell checking module |
| recode | Character sets encoding conversion using GNU Recode |
| shmop | Shared memory module using SHMOP |
| snmp | SNMP client module |
| sockets | Low level sockets module |
| swf | Shockwave Flash module using libswf library |
| sybase | Sybase database client module |
| sysvmsg | System V messages module |
| sysvsem | System V semaphore module |
| sysvshm | System V shared memory module |
| tokenizer | Tokenizer module |
| wddx | Web Distributed Data Exchange (WDDX) module |
| xmlrpc | XMLRPC and SOAP module |
| xslt | XSLT processor module |
| yaz | YAZ module |
| yp | YP module |
| zip | ZIP files read access module |
| zlib | Zlib compression module |
These following modules are always loaded for technical reasons:
| Module | Description |
|---|---|
| openssl | OpenSSL for SSL related cryptographic functions |
| pcre | Perl compatible regular expression library |
| session | HTTP session support |
| wddx | Web Distributed Data Exchange module |
| xml | Extensible Markup Language (XML) parser module |
Custom PHP Modules
Sometimes you will need PHP modules not available on our list above (e.g. third party commercial modules) or you develop your own customized PHP module yourself. In those cases you will be able to install PHP modules by yourself.
PHP Configuration
Almost everything about configuring PHP can be done on our SiteManager by using an easy to use and intuitive interface.
Your domain and subdomain can have their own PHP configuration. Allowing you to use different configuration for different subdomains. For instance, you can install the MySQL and ftp module on subdomain A but on subdomain B, you install the PostgreSQL and GD module.
It is not only limited to modules configuration, you can also change the other PHP settings, such as the use of ASP tag, the session parameters and other settings.
Support for PEAR
We also support PEAR, any PEAR modules can be installed easily by using our convenient SiteManager. This also includes binary PECL packages. From SiteManager you can also uninstall previously installed PEAR packages and see information about any PEAR packages. You can also use the standard command line interface if you prefer that, the environment is already set for you.
Security and Flexibility
PHP configuration in web hosting environment has been traditionally problematic. Almost all web hosting company configure PHP to use Apache module. This configuration has its problems depending on whether safe mode is enabled or not:
- Without safe mode it is extremely insecure. Any user on the system will be
able to view or download any other users' files on the same system. A PHP code
like
<? passthru("cat /home/otheruser/file"); ?>will be able to be used to get other users' files, potentially sensitive ones, like those containing database passwords, credit cards number and other information. - With safe mode it is extremely inflexible. You lose the ability to use a lot of third party programs since safe mode will disable some functions. In fact, all PHP programs that require reading and writing to a file will NOT function at all.
indoglobal.com takes a different approach. Instead of using Apache module version of PHP we use CGI version. This way our customer can use PHP securely and yet all PHP program will run without problem. In most cases you won't even notice that your PHP is running in CGI mode.
indoglobal.com is one of the earliest web hosting company that aware of this particular issue. Since our inception (year 1997, pre PHP 3.0), we have been investigating and experimenting various ways to achieve the best way of running PHP script in a shared hosting environment without compromising security and sacrificing features. From years of experience, we strongly believe our configuration is the absolutely best way of running PHP inside shared environment.