Useful information when using and testing scripts.
Advanced Plans come with extensive opportunities for employing scripts.
Path to Scripts
If creating or installing your own scripts on the Advanced Hosting Plans, you may need some or all of the following details ...
Web directory
/home/username/public_html
Sendmail
/usr/sbin/sendmail
Cgi-bin
/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin
Perl
/usr/bin/perl
PHP Binary
/usr/bin/php
Replace the word 'username' with the actual username for your account ... this can be found in your Welcome Mail.
Fantastico Script Library
All clients with any of our Advanced Hosting Plans receive access to an extensive list of premium scripts. Available from the 'fantastico' link from the Control Panel, most of the scripts can be installed with a simple 'point-and-click' procedure.
The range of scripts includes a choice of ecommerce shopping carts, blogs, content management systems, online help systems, complete websites and a great deal more.
Whilst the scripts are available to all clients on all hosting accounts, we are unable to provide free support for them. We recommend you seek support from the script originator, a link to whom is available from the script installation page.
Some scripts can be quite large so before installing a script, we suggest you check you have sufficient disk space available.
If using the Fantastico Wizard to install a script, it will first check to make sure you have sufficient room on your account.
If you want to test a script but do not have sufficient room, open a Support Ticket and we will increase your webspace allocation for a limited period in order that you may test the scripts before deciding to upgrade your account.
Your Own Scripts
You can install your own bespoke or third-party scripts and place them anywhere on your hosting plan however, we are unable to provide help with installation or any connection issues you may have.
Please note, it is the responsibility of each client to ensure the CHMOD permissions are set correctly on all scripts and that the security recommendations provided with the script, are followed in full.
We recommend you do not have ANY directory set to CHMOD permission level 777.
Banned Scripts
For security reasons, the following scripts are considered banned and clients are not allowed to upload their own versions of these scripts to our servers ...
phpSitemapNG - sitemap creator
UltimateBBS / UBB
IkonBoard
All versions of YABB forum
Anonymizer and all other Proxy scripts
IRC scripts
Chat rooms not included as standard in the cPanel
phpShell and all other command execution scripts
Webmail and eGallery modules of PHP-Nuke
'Matts' FormMail
In most cases, we provide secure alternative versions of the most popular scripts for quick and easy installation. If you are unsure as to whether your script will be acceptable, please contact us: 0844-8849100.
Form to Mail Scripts
For security reasons, clients are asked to use the pre-installed or recommended form-to-mail scripts where possible. You are allowed to upload your own as long as you remember to set any CHMOD permissions correctly and you DO NOT call your script any of the following ...
formmail
mailform
form-mail
mail-form
or any upper/lowercase variants of the above
This makes life a little more difficult for automated scanners which search out and abuse vulnerable emailing scripts for their spamming purposes.
ImageMagick
Imagemagick is a popular utility for manipulation of image files within scripts and is often used by image galleries.
The Imagemagick is available on our Advanced and Reseller Plans and is installed in ...
/usr/lib/php/bin
However, different scripts may require different ways of providing the path so it's recommended each of the following are tried if unsuccessful the first time ...
Default: /usr/lib/php/bin
Default with closing slash: /usr/lib/php/bin/
Root installation dir: /usr/lib/php
Root installation dir closing slash: /usr/lib/php/
Full path to 'mogrify': /usr/lib/php/bin/mogrify
Full path to 'convert': /usr/lib/php/bin/convert
Zend and Ioncube
Zend and Ioncube are software that sit on the server and decrypt script files. Script programmers often encrypt certain script pages to prevent their code being copied. By using Zend or Ioncube, encrypted pages can be read so the script runs properly. Many scripts provide an Ioncube and Zend version. The script will run in the same way regardless of which version you choose to use.
Zend
Zend Optimizer installed on all our servers which allows all clients to use scripts encoded with this application without any further intervention.
Ioncube
Please note that whilst we have Zend installed on all servers, we do not have the Ioncube loaders installed on our servers.
This is because they can easily be installed as and when required by clients with no intervention from us.
To install Ioncube loaders ...
Download the latest set of Ioncube loaders from the Ioncube Website.
Make sure to choose the loaders for Linux Intel (or 'Linux (x86)' ) and the correct PHP version (check PHP version on front page of cPanel under 'Server Information').
Select the archive format which you are able to open on your system (zip for Windows).
The directory in the downloaded archive (called 'ioncube') should be placed in or above the top directory of the encoded files.
For example, if you have encoded files/scripts in or below ...
/home/username/public_html/scriptfiles
... you might want to upload the 'ioncube' directory via FTP to ...
/home/username/public_html/scriptfiles
... or even ...
/home/username/public_html
If your script encoded files fail to run following installation of the Ioncube loaders, you can run a test by using the PHP script 'ioncube-rtl-tester.php' which is included in the Ioncube download archive (in the 'ioncube' dir).
To do so ...
Copy the 'ioncube-rtl-tester.php' PHP script to a directory where you expect encoded files to be working.
Access the script by entering the correct URL in a browser.
The script will try to locate and install the required loader and will produce output as it runs.
Troubleshooting Scripts
If you are trying to install a script that is supplied free by Saffas, but can not get it to work, run the following checks to find out why ...
New Clients
New domain registrations and domain transfers can take up to 24 hours to complete. During this time some features of your site will not function because your domain needs to be in place before working. You may need to leave it the full 24 hours from transfer before fully testing your site.
PHP Scripts
Before a domain is transferred, you can test normal html pages through the temporary link provided in your Welcome Mail (eg: http://www.saffas2.com/~username) however, this will not work for some php scripts. Instead, when testing php scripts, you can simply replace 'www' with 'access' from the temporary link (http://access.saffas2.com/~username). This should work when testing php scripts.
Register Globals
Does your script need 'register_globals' to be turned on?
If a script needs register_globals to be 'on' this can be done by adding the following line to a .htaccess file in the directory where the script is running ...
php_value register_globals 1
Any client making this change should be aware of the security implications of doing this and be prepared to take responsibility should a script compromise occur as a result of the setting.
