mediawiki upgrade causes IonCube error

[twt]

I have a couple of mediawiki installations (different hosted domains, duplicate copies of the code, one shared hosting account) and I put off doing the upgrade to the latest mediawiki for several months. Today I started going through the steps and I thought I would get "smarter" by linking to a single copy of the code similar to what's described here in "method 2" http://www.steverumberg.com/wiki/ind...WikiHelp&w=myc
(These instructions were linked from the mediawiki web site.)

I created what looks to me like the right deal, but the upgrade code is not working. It's complaining about a missing "ionCube" module, and I don't even know why such a thing would be necessary

I get the following error

-jailshell-3.00$ php update.php
Failed loading /usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so:  /usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
A copy of your installation's LocalSettings.php
must exist and be readable in the source directory.
-jailshell-3.00$

My directory structure looked like this:

/home/acctname/public_html/mediawiki-1.12.0/ <--where I untarred

/home/acctname/public_html/subdomain1/wiki/ <---most files here are linked to /home/acctname/public_html/mediawiki-1.12.0/*

/home/acctname/public_html/subdomain1/wiki/maintenance


JUST NOW I blew away all the symbolic links and made hard copies of everything in the subdomain directory and I get a similar error:

-jailshell-3.00$ php update.php
Failed loading /usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so:  /usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
MediaWiki 1.12.0 Updater

No superuser credentials could be found. Please provide the details
of a user with appropriate permissions to update the database. See
AdminSettings.sample for more details.

-jailshell-3.00$

any suggestions would be welcome!

[Ron]

I don't know if IonCube error is causing your mediawiki's problem, but you should open a support ticket and ask them to move IonCube to a location accessible to jailshell.

My scripts aren't bothered by the Ioncube error, but I couldn't stand getting the error all the time and support obliged me and moved it.

[twt]

Can you tell me what IonCube is and why it's throwing errors when I don't use it?

[twt]

also, if it's just a path issue, maybe all I need to do is add the actual location of it to an rc file somewhere... (like bashrc for the shell or whatever)

[twt]

OK I finally found where IonCube is being pointed to -- it's in the system-wide php.ini which you can see if you go to the PHP configuration page in your control panel, and download a copy of the file. Now I understand HOW it's getting called (via php.ini) even though it's not in any of the code _I_ am using.... !

[twt]

OK as it turns out I was too focused on the IonCube error and I missed the solution -- the second error said to look in AdminSettings.sample for more details. I just looked through that file and it told me how to create an AdminSettings.php file that would let the command-line script work. It did, DESPITE the IonCube error. Whew! :-)

[Gwaihir]

IonCube is a (paid) tool to encode PHP scripts so you can close the source (Zend Encoder is another one). The IonCube loader is the part of the tool needed on the server to execute such encoded scripts.

If you don't have any encoded scripts, you can probably either fix the call by pointing it to the right place (or have support install the loader if it isn't to be found at all), or just remove it from php.ini all together.

P.S. I can't say that I like such tools, but if one must use one, Zend's is IMHO the better choice. Many more servers have the loader (Zend Optimizer) installed and in most cases it is also faster. Note that reflection beats either of these tools..

[twt]

THANK you for the explanation.

I just opened the system php.ini again (you look at it by downloading a copy from the php section in your control panel) and here are the lines:

; Directory in which the loadable extensions (modules) reside.
extension_dir = "/usr/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613"
zend_extension="/usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so"
zend_extension_ts="/usr/local/IonCube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.2_ts.so"

I'm guessing jailshell blocks access to those directories by default. Surely the path isn't bad when apache calls them.... ?

[jason]

Here's a quick way to get around the problem:

Comment out the two offending lines (the ones starting zend_extension and zend_extension_ts, the semicolon is the comment character for ini files) from the php.ini you grabbed from cPanel. Then upload the modified file to your account. Where you put it and what you call it aren't important. (For simplicy in this example, I'll put it in my home directory and call it php5-cli.ini so as not to confuse it with other php.ini files I have for my site.)

Then just call php with the -c option and pass the path to that file:

php5 -c /home/USERNAME/php5-cli.ini myscript.php

Works...but it is kind of bulky to type that in every time you need to run a script!
Never fear, though...aliases to the rescue...

Now open the .profile file in your home directory in your favorite text editor and add the following:

alias php5="/usr/local/bin/php5 -c /home/USERNAME/php5-cli.ini"

When this alias goes into effect, any time you type php5 in an interactive shell it will actually call the real php5 binary passing it the path to your desired php.ini.

Since the .profile file is only read when a new shell is started you will either have to log out and log back in for the change to take effect, or you can use the following command to reload your profile file:

source .profile

Now run a php script and say good bye to the errors.

Note: this approach won't work if you have any executable (chmod 7**) php scripts in your account with which you use a shebang line (#!/usr/local/bin/php5) at the top, though you should be able to pass the -c option as part of the shebang.

--Jason

[Ron]

...or you could open a ticket to support and they will move the IonCube files to a directory that is accessible to Jailshell...