OK. So, let's take PHP as an example.
I'm entering a URL in the browser, requesting a php script. (e.g. http://www.somedomain.com/index.php)
The browser sends that request to the appropriate server.
The server recognizes - by its extension (.php) - that's it's a PHP
file.
The PHP interpreter processes the file and outputs the results.
The server sends back the output.
Now, let's say we are dealing with a... home-made interpreter XYZ (with its binary,etc), dealing e.g. with .xyz files.
How should I go about that, so all the above things are valid for my XYZ interpreter?
How should I set this whole thing up, so that it works properly?
Hint : I'm not requesting help on how to write an interpreter, but on how to make it function the above way...
Your options are to either use an existing, standard interface and write your software to conform to it, or to write a new module for the server.
For the former, CGI is simple but inefficient while FastCGI is more modern but relatively complicated.
If you want to write a new module, then the specifics will depend on the server you are dealing with.
This totally depends on what web server you are using. However, if that is Apache, you should look into apxs for building and installing your own apache modules. Google will help you find online tutorials on apxs.
For adding a handler for a specific file ending, you should do something like this in your apache configuration (after your iterpreter/apache module is built):
AddHandler my_handler .end
Related
I want to put my PHP program on Apache server(there are existing Perl program running there).
And I want to invoke those programs independently.
For example)
"http://my-address/existing-program" goes to Perl program,
on the other hand, "http://my-address/new-program" goes to PHP program.
I might need to modify "httpd.conf" but I am not sure how.
Any advise would be helpful.
Kind regards.
You could use mod_rewrite calls in your httpd.conf file to intercept specific URLs and make sure they're routed and handled accordingly.
Hidden features of mod_rewrite
I am replacing an existing very old site written in another lang with a newly-coded php site and I need to double-check a couple of things with respect to security. Website will be running on Windows 2008 R2 using IIS 7.5 and running php 5.3.8.
I am storing db login creds in a file outside of web root. But in my php code I have to include those files and I am using an absolute path. Will php and/or IIS strip out the file path. (I imagine the answer is yes since competing technologies would do likewise, but need to be sure on this and couldn't find the answer.)
On a related point, what is the best place to keep .js files? Is it better security-wise to keep them outside of web root?
Sorry for the basic questions, but am new to php (long time programmer in other langs).
well, php is different from ASP, so my suggestion is to make a subdomain for js/css, you even can name it CDN... but, it still better than from the root.
I ran a bunch of tests where I looked at the source of what is returned by php and the webserver. If you use the php command "require c:\abc\file.php" neither piece of information is returned with the html.
However, the path to a .js file IS displayed. This is because it sits inside the html, not php, so that path is NOT stripped out by php or the webserver.
So from this I think I can safely say:
1. The path to the creds will not be displayed in the html source returned to the browser or curl call or whatever.
2. js and css paths are shown publicly so it is worth considering whether these need to be secured (e.g., separate subdomain or similar).
im trying to implement on my site a system who let the user download a file that have to be change before the download.
I have a master file (a .exe program), that inside have a variable who has to be change for every different user.
The most simple solution is to change a variable inside a xml file every time the user want his personalized exe and then make the exe file to read the external file. BUT i dont want the user to download more than one file.
Is this possible? using php can i change a parametter inside a compiled program? Thanks for any help and suggestions!
If you really really know what you're doing and you know exactly the bits that need to be flipped inside the file, then yes, it's possible to modify the .exe file with PHP. Otherwise you have to make changes to the source or other files the .exe is built with and compile the program on the server before sending it to the user.
In theory it's certainly possible (PHP is turing complete), but as stated in other answers it will be hardly worth the hassle (considering the fact that you have to ask whether it is possible shows you'd have to investigate at last for days into the standard exe-format).
I'd recommend one of the following:
1) Zip the program with the configuration file; either use a separate launcher (e.g. Java [a JAR is a ZIP file]) or add a configuration file that is read by the program itself. There is a number of PHP libraries for generating ZIP files.
2) compile the program with the changed source on the server itself; however this can also become quite complicated depending on your server configuration and the programming environment you use. If you have never administered a virtual server I would not even slightly recommend that as an option.
3) If you can assume that the user got somewhat stable Internet access you might also consider to let hir download a standard executable, where additional configuration will be downloaded later on by the program itself (e.g. by transmitting the username to the server). However this creates dependencies you might want to avoid (your user probably can't use it on machines without Internet access and you should assert that your server is up most of the time).
While it's probably possible, I doubt it's worth the hassle. Unless you're trying to fight piracy or something. Why don't you just serve the user a custom .zip file with the .exe and a config .xml?
[edit after OP commented]
I presume what you're trying to edit is the facebook ID/username? Well, try to compile the base file with some unique string like "THISNEEDSTOBEREPLACED", then use some binary safe function to replace it. Though remember things can and will get tricky if the string lengths don't match.
I would like to be able to port some new site pages over to PHP using the same db as in the coldfusion site. Is it possible to have PHP run pages in say other directory and go back and forth ?
Many thanks for your reply.
Terry
As others have said, yes, it is possible. Your configuration doesn't really matter, (unless you're looking for help getting it setup), because it can be done on any modern webserver (Apache, IIS, etc).
Something to think about, though, is the default document. If your web application uses urls like:
http://example.com/myApp/ (no index.cfm or index.php in the url)
Then you need to be aware of the explicit order of default documents. If you have both an index.php and an index.cfm template in the same directory, which will execute?
If your default document list is (a variation of):
index.cfm index.php default.aspx index.html
Then the ColdFusion page will be the one to execute. On the other hand, if the default document list is (a variation of):
index.php index.cfm default.aspx index.html
Then the PHP page will be the one to execute.
Yes, this is possible, I have this available on my production web server (RedHat but it shouldn't matter). If you're looking for details on configuration I couldn't help you though, I had my host set it up. I wouldn't imagine a standard install of both would conflict, just set up the proper handling for each file extension and you should be good to go, keeping them in separate directories or mixing them in one.
It is possible as long as you are running the same web server (i.e. IIS or Apache) for both ColdFusion and PHP. If you let us know what your environment is, people may be able to further assist you - but the answer to your question is yes.
Yes,
It's technically no different to Windows servers which have both PHP and .Net installed, or a Linux server with Perl and PHP.
Speaking generally, after installing the languages you're using you set up your web server to handle files of different extensions. This is done differently depending on whether you're using IIS or Apache, but you effectively say .php files should be handled by the PHP interpreter and .cfm files handled by the Coldfusion interpreter.
As others have said, its entirely possible and not hard to setup. Just watch out for Default Document as Adam Tuttle said.
I will take it a step further: you even run CF and PHP in the same application server!
Use Cauchos Resin for CF and its Quercus support for PHP:
http://quercus.caucho.com/
Of course, if your PHP app is non-trivial and/or relies on some custom extensions or extensions that Quercus doesnt support than your SOL. But might be interesting to check out.
I am writing a small web server, nothing fancy, I basically just want to be able to show some files. I would like to use PHP though, and im wondering if just putting the php code inside of the html will be fine, or if I need to actually use some type of PHP library?
http://www.adp-gmbh.ch/win/misc/webserver.html
I just downloaded that and I am going to use that to work off of. Basically I am writing a serverside game plugin that will allow game server owners to access a web control panel for their server. Some features would be possible with PHP so this is my goal. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
The PHP won't serve itself. What happens in a web server like Apache is before the PHP is served to the user it is passed through a PHP parser. That PHP parser reads, understands and executes anything between (or even ) tags depending on configuration. The resultant output, usually still HTML, is served by the web server.
There are a number of ways to achieve this. Modules to process PHP have been written by Apache but you do not have to use these. PHP.exe on windows, installed from windows.php.net, will do this for you. Given a PHP file as an argument it will parse the PHP and spit the result back out on the standard output.
So, one option for you is to start PHP.exe from within your web server with a re-directed standard output to your program, and serve the result.
How to create a child process with re-directed IO: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms682499%28VS.85%29.aspx however, you won't be writing the child process, that'll be PHP.exe
Caveat: I am not sure from a security / in production use perspective if this is the most secure approach, but it would work.
PHP needs to be processed by the PHP runtime. I'm assuming the case you're talking about is that you have a C++ server answering HTTP queries, and you want to write PHP code out with the HTML when you respond to clients.
I'm not aware of any general-purpose PHP library. The most straightforward solution is probably to use PHP as a CGI program.
Here's a link that might be useful for that: http://osdir.com/ml/php-general/2009-06/msg00473.html
This method is nice because you don't need to write the HTML+PHP out to a file first; you can stream it to PHP.
You need execute the PHP page to serve the page it generates.
The easiest thing for you to do would be to add CGI support to your webserver in some basic form. This is non-trivial, but not too difficult. Basically you need to pass PHP an environment and input, and retrieve the output.
Once you have CGI support you can just use any executable, including PHP, to generate webpages.