Self updadating script?

schwim

Heya folks!

I'm playing with an idea but aren't smart enough to figure out why I've only seen it done by Wordpress.

Say I've written a script for public use. Instead of offering update packages for the users to download, unzip, upload and then run an update script, what would be some of the necessary technologies or php functions/modules to make something like this possible? Curl/ftp_put, perhaps? I would fall back to a downloadable package for the cases in which someone chose to update in the traditional method, but am very interested in trying something like this.

Thanks for your time!

schwim

Too vague or ignorant of a question?

Weedpacket

A bit vague; but if the web site itself were to download and install PHP files then the user account the web server runs under would need write permissions to the relevant directories/files - and by extension, so would anyone connecting via the site.

dalecosp

Weedpacket;11032497 wrote:
A bit vague; but if the web site itself were to download and install PHP files then the user account the web server runs under would need write permissions to the relevant directories/files - and by extension, so would anyone connecting via the site.

Which implies that the site might be more vulnerable to attack as a result.

I suppose if a good amount of business logic somehow lived in the DBMS ...

schwim

Thanks very much for the replies guys. Just a thought in regards to security: how about using FTP_PUT to update the files? I do remember that it was at one time a fallback method if the file permissions didn't allow update for WordPress. Would FTP alleviate any security concerns?