Re: [cobalt-users] [RaQ 4] Some (easy?) questions from a newbie

["Steve Werby" <steve-lists@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Carrie Bartkowiak" <ravencarrie@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
<snip after one minute of scrolling ;-)>
> > 3. How do i update/recompile php?
>
> I actually don't have the answer for this one, but I do have some
> questions to make you think.
> Many people have great success recompiling PHP on the Cobalts - then
> again, they know what they're doing.
> Many other people try to recompile PHP and end up breaking things.
> It's a risky venture.
> WHY do you need ftp enabled? As an alternative, why not just use a
> file upload snippet of php coding? You *can* do file uploading through
> PHP without having PHP be ftp-enabled... I hope you knew that. If not,
> now you do.

There's an endless # of reasons why someone might want to build a web app
that uses PHP's FTP functions - web-based interface for backing up files,
tool to allow customers to download software directly to their server, tool
to allow clients to add/delete/move files from any web browser, etc.
There's another solution that can give all the functionality of PHP's FTP
functions without recompiling PHP --enable-ftp, however anyone who can use
this method to interact with a FTP server could probably compile PHP in
their sleep.  ;-)  PHP has socket functions including fsockopen() which can
be used to communicate with any port on a server - IMAP, POP, FTP, HTTP,
etc.  However it requires a very good understanding of programming and in
most cases a very good understanding of the relevant RFCs...and some
knowledge of related resources and how to use google.  You might find some
of the examples and snippets on
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.fsockopen.php interesting, but to me
recompiling makes more sense...a lot more sense.

> Also, what's wrong with just regular ftp?

It really depends what the original poster intends to accomplish.  My guess
is that he needs to do something more complex than allowing a user to upload
a file, doesn't want to involve a Windows FPT client and can't give FTP
access to do what's needed.

--
Steve Werby
President, Befriend Internet Services LLC
http://www.befriend.com/