How to execute remote code in PHP - php

Question

I'm simply attempting to execute remote PHP code locally.
To put it simply, I have an external script hosted on xxx.com/code.txt - and then want to have my internal system load that code in PHP. I tried using file_get_contents() but I don't think this is the right method of doing so.
I also tried using include(), but it seems that most PHP configurations have the http wrapper disabled. So in that case, how can I, using PHP check to see if the server has allow_url_include enabled or not because my script relies on loading the external code, or at least having a if function to check if allow_url_include is enabled or not.

Answer 1

Try this function
function get_data($url)
{
$ch = curl_init();
$timeout = 5;
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_URL,$url);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1);
curl_setopt($ch,CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT,$timeout);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
echo $data;
curl_close($ch);
return $data;
}
You can call this function like this
$response = get_data('http://yoursite.com/code.txt');

Answer 2

To kinda safely import code you could:
make a php script which requires a hash (big big big hash) and put it on the server you want to connect to.
You can then #file_get_contents() that php file with the hash in the url
That script accepts the hash, imports a file (whichever you want) and returns it.
But as they all said, if it's PHP you want to execute think twice.
And if this does not convince you at least don't do it plain text but encrypt it or something (SSL is something, but blowfish with a two sided key would be better) and an allowed IP system.
The point is that you want to control the gateways, not make it open to all.