Messing with PHP setups...

vaaaska

Out of blue a friend tells me that I can unset SAFE MODE. It may not work in all situations but still...WHOA!

ini_set( "safe_mode", "0" );

Additionally, I wasn't aware that I could try to load PHP extension libraries at runtime:

ini_set( "extension_dir", "/some/directory/you/can/access" );
dl( "extensionName" );

And so, as I bet I'm only skimming the surface here, what other things can a dev do at runtime? Heretofore can be a collection of things.

😉

Weedpacket

 ini_set( "safe_mode", "0" );

It isn't even listed in the manual that you can do that; ditto for setting extension_dir. You mean that actually works?

(I guess this is one reason safe_mode is expected to go away in PHP 6 - kept giving too many people the wrong idea and was too easy to circumvent anyway).

vaaaska

I hate to say this, but I was about to delete this thread. I'm not completely sure this works...perhaps I should have done some homework first. Research...

Edit: my quick test says this (the safe mode test) does not work...what the heck was he talking about?

Double Edit: apparently, it does work. I think my dev server has it turned off by default. Perahps I'm not smart enough to figure this one out.

http://us3.php.net/ini_set
http://us3.php.net/dl

This link basically spells it out...look for SAFE_MODE in the list...

http://us3.php.net/manual/en/ini.php#ini.list

I can't get the extension to load as I'm on a multithreaded server. It does appear possible. Additionally, something is wonky with my dev server setup so I can't play around with the safe_mode setting. Somebody else could try it out...here's the code...

	ini_set('safe_mode','0');

if (ini_get('safe_mode')) {
   echo 'on';
} else {
   echo 'off';
}

Sxooter

Just because you can flip a switch doesn't mean it works.

I tested this a long time ago, and I could not get out of safe mode.

My current workstation here does too much to play with things that WILL likely break stuff, so I can't test it right now. I'll do it on my laptop when I get home if no one else has done it by then. But unless things have changed, you can't just turn it off.

goldbug

Sxooter wrote:
But unless things have changed, you can't just turn it off.

Correct. The manual even states it:

safe_mode "0" PHP_INI_SYSTEM

PHP_INI_SYSTEM meaning it can only effectively be changed in php.ini or httpd.conf, not in scripts or .htaccess files (aka, only the server admin).

csn

It'd be ridiculous if scripts themselves could turn off safe mode.

I've often wanted to do 'ini_set('magic_quotes_gpc', 0)', but that doesn't work, so I put 'php_admin_flag magic_quotes_gpc off' in httpd.conf (and simply check 'get_magic_quotes_gpc()' once). Looks like the same can be done with safe mode - httpd.conf but NOT htaccess though.

vaaaska

For myself, I wasn't so interestsed in turning off safe mode as I wanted to load a transliteration extension at runtime...but it's not going to work on a shared server (and for good reason).