Opening fiiles outside of user directory

[pdaddy]

I've just migrated from one Cpanel server to another.

On my old server, I often used php to require and include files outside of the current domain's user directory. This was handy for calling in database variables from other domains in order to link different databases together.

However I no longer have permission to do this on my new server. Fopen etc. fails unless the target file is chowned to the UID of the domain trying to access it, which is no good.

PHP's basedir_protection is definitely not turned on, and neither is PHP safemode. I presumre the ability to open files outside of the current user directory is an apache directive somewhere, but I have no idea where.

Security worries aside, anyone know how I can fix this? Thanks!

[cpanelkenneth]

I believe this is a security provision of suPHP. You'll either need to adjust the parameters of suPHP, change the PHP handler to a less-security conscious one ( e.g. DSO ) or change the ownership and permissions of the files you are trying to open.

[mickbeng]

Perhaps, you may check for the error_log for more detail and I will not suggest for DSO if you have suPHP turned on.

[cPanelDavidG]

Also, be mindful that SuPHP and SuExec is enabled by default on new cPanel/WHM servers. This is a relatively recent change in product defaults.