TheChrisD - Rant Central » Rants » Maybe a little too restrictive?

Thursday the 1st of November, 2007

Maybe a little too restrictive?

Posted at 10:54:02pm UTC
2 more rants down there!

So, it’s been 3 days since I’ve moved to Dreamhost, and so far:

I have my blog back up and running, with the feed working and upgraded to the latest Wordpress version - which is evident from the fact that you’re reading this
I’ve re-created the stuff subdomain and, hopefully, have all the files back up there.
I’ve re-created the EOD subdomain and re-uploaded the files there.

The only real main issue I’ve had so far with Dreamhost is the fact that they have one main issue with their default PHP.ini - it has allow_url_fopen turned off. Alright, no biggie. A little copying here, editing there, and .htaccessing at the end, and it seems that at least the EOD subdomain is running off of a custom php.ini script. Woo.

Alright, so head off to test out the Hyperiums tools to see if they are able to gather the data.
Nope. Brings me back to the form page as it did before.
OK then, let’s try a test script where I simply fopen CBTS’s homepage.
Uh-uh.
Right, getting a little pissed off now, so let’s just ensure it’s working and check phpinfo().

allow_url_fopen

Alright, so WTFH is wrong?! fopen’s are allowed, so why won’t they work? It’s the exact same problem that’s affecting Adam’s Xbox Live Express Facebook module - because fopen was disabled, his database couldn’t update from the Gamercard API using simple_xml_loadfile. So I directed him on installing the custom php.ini.

Still not working. For him or me.

So now all I can assume is that either there is something really screwed up with our custom php.ini’s - which shouldn’t be the case, Dreamhost have clamped down on custom php.ini’s - really shouldn’t be the case cos that would affect a load of their customers, or the server hasn’t yet properly started to use the custom php.ini - which also shouldn’t be the case cos phpinfo() says it’s using the custom one…..

Can’t they just enable allow_url_fopen for everyone and avoid all this crap?

Cats: Web Stuff

2 More Rants

Indutiomarus ranted:

Monday the 5th of November, 2007 at 8:26:34am UTC

Dreamhost is universally reviled in the web hosting world, if I recall correctly. I’ve been out of the web hosting industry for some time, but I recall their name not being associated with good quality.

You can always use fsockopen. It takes a bit more work, but it’s far more efficient, and it’ll likely work with your setup.

allow_url_fopen is a dangerous setting because it’s the primary vector of attack for most php-processor attacks.

To what gamercard API are you referring?
TheChrisD ranted:

Monday the 5th of November, 2007 at 12:46:05pm UTC

Duncan Mackenzie’s Gamercard feed.

I think the main reason I didn’t really have much issues using fopen and the like, because on my forums it automatically chooses whether to use fopen, fsockopen or some other command depending on the situation.

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