PHP - How To Set The Server Up And Running

This isn't exactly an application design question, but rather a system design one.   I am about to install an Inventory Control System inside this store I work in.   The store itself also owns a Linode VPS running Centos 6.4 which hosts our website.   This new Inventory System will come built in with a Microsoft SQL Server, and supposedly it is a SQL Anywhere database, but I'm not too sure what that means.     I need to make this database publicly accessible, but only via the Linode VPS.  Surely, setting restrictions is easy enough to address that issue.  That isn't my question.   My first idea is to put this server into the DMZ, easy.  But it doesn't exactly sound safe.  So my next idea was to put a middleman server in the DMZ, this way the Linode can send queries to that middleman server and it will send that data to the SQL Server and back.  This is very vaguely described I know, but I don't want to get too much into details, but rather, understand how I can create that middleman server, and what could Install onto it that would allow me to securely process queries?   My first thought was to install a webservice, that accepts an XML/JSON request and returns an XML/JSON response. Then, I realized directly afterwards that I don't have any experience setting up a webservice like that. What kind of options are there out there?
  Ultimately, my question is, should I just put the Server in the DMZ or should I create the middleman, and if so, can someone point me in the right direction as to getting a webservice set up?
Edited by Zane, 15 July 2014 - 11:28 PM.

Following a tutorial on udemy, i tried to learn the very basics of mvc structure. I built the same project on my local server and it worked without giving me any error. but when i tried it on live server. its not working as it should. not showing any error. I tried to figure out the problem and found that for every page loading, it stops at the same line in my main.php file.

<?php require($view); ?>

starting from the above line. it stops. i came here to share my problem but i am unable to upload my files here. if there is a way to upload and share my files, please guide. zip file size of the whole project is 31.6 kb

(This might be the wrong forum; it might be server-side configuration, but alas it is the code that *calls* fwrite, so I'll start here.)

I have written a script, and one thing it does is generate a file to disk using fwrite. No big deal.

Here's what interests me:
On most servers, the file is written successfully when the folder's permissions are 755 with recursive permissions. On some servers, 755 fails. Only 777 works.
How could this be? Are permissions=permissions=permissions? Why will 755 work on one machine but not another?

I'm just a logic guy; I know very little of server-side configuration and/or why there would be a difference here. Just trying to learn.

Hey. I am wanting to move a couple of files from my current server to another.

If i am uploading the file this is fine but if it is already on the server then im not sure how to move it.

When uploading I can just use ftp_put($conn_id, $destination_file, $myFile, FTP_BINARY);

What i need to do is figure out how to get a hold of the file and store it in $myFile then this would work fine.

Is this possible?

Cheers

What I'm trying to do is copy all  files from one server to another folder on another server. Here is what I have have so far..

<?PHP

//connection settings
$ftp_server = "server";
$ftp_user_name = "user";
$ftp_user_pass = "pass";

$dir = "/var/test/";
$destination_file = "/test/";

// set up basic connection
$conn_id = ftp_connect($ftp_server);

// login with username and password
$login_result = ftp_login($conn_id, $ftp_user_name, $ftp_user_pass);

// check connection
if ((!$conn_id) || (!$login_result))
{
echo "FTP connection has failed!";
echo "Attempted to connect to $ftp_server for user $ftp_user_name";
exit;
}
else
{
echo "Connected to $ftp_server, for user $ftp_user_name";
}


if (ftp_chdir($conn_id, $dir)) {
     echo " <br/>Current directory is now: " . ftp_pwd($conn_id) . "\n<p/>";
} else {
echo "Couldn't change directory\n<p/>";
}

$buff = ftp_rawlist($conn_id, $dir);

foreach($buff as $files)
{
echo $files. "<br/>";

if (ftp_get($conn_id, $destination_file."test.file", $dir."test.txt", FTP_BINARY)) {
     echo "<br/>Successfully written to $destination_file\n";
} else {
     echo "There was a problem\n";
}

?>

That doesn't work. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Sean

I have two servers: WebServer and FaxServer.  WebServer needs to send a fax.  Is my approach shown below fairly secure?

Before sending a fax, ServerWeb needs to store a record in a table representing the message, and I am using a pseudo random value for the PK which is generated as 2147483648+mt_rand(-2147483647,2147483647).

WebServer then generates a hash equal to hash('sha256',$pk.'secretCodeWhichOnlyWebServerAndFaxServerKnow').

WebServer then sends curl request to FaxServer using POST which includes $pk, the hash, the fax number, some text to include in the fax, and an optional array of document to include (array(array('id'=>321,'name')=>'fileName.pdf')).

FaxServer verifies that the hash is correct given $pk, that the minimum information has been received, and that the fax number is a valid phone number, and quickly responds to WebServer by echoing 0 or 1 so the code in the WebServer could continue and inform the user.  If all looks okay, a new instance of PHP is started.
 

if(missingInformation) {echo(0);}
else {
   session_start();
   $_SESSION['_xfr']=$_POST;
   exec('/usr/bin/php -q /path/to/send_fax.php '.session_id().' >/dev/null &');
   echo(1);
}

New instance of PHP send_fax.php then does the following:
 

session_id($argv[1]);//Set by parent
session_start();
$data=$_SESSION['_xfr'];

$doc_list=null;
foreach ($data['documents'] AS $doc)
{
    if(ctype_alnum($doc['id']))
    {
        $file='/some/tmp/directory/'.$doc['id'];
        if(!file_exists($file))
        {
            $url='http://machine.WebServer.com/index.php?task=displayDocument&id='.$doc['id'].'&x='.hash('sha256','displayDocument'.$doc['id'].'secretCodeWhichOnlyWebServerAndFaxServerKnow');
            $cmd='wget -O '.$file.' '.escapeshellarg($url);
            exec($cmd);
        }    
        $doc_list.=' '.$file;
    }
    exit('invalid document');
}

//Send the fax...

//Send another CURL request to the WebServer similar to the wget giving the fax status.
exit;

When WebServer receives the wget request for a document, it confirms the hash and sends the document to the FaxServer using X-Sendfile.

When WebServer receives the CURL request regarding status, it updates the database for the applicable message.   Seem reasonably secure?
 

I wish to create validation rules once which are used both on the client and on the server.   For instance, I will start off with the following PHP object:

stdClass Object
(
    [rules] => stdClass Object
        (
            [email] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [required] => 1
                    [email] => 1
                    [remote] => stdClass Object
                        (
                            [url] => check-email.php
                            [type] => post
                            [data] => stdClass Object
                                (
                                    [username] => function() {return $( '#username' ).val();}
                                )
                        )
                )
        )

    [messages] => stdClass Object
        (
            [email] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [required] => an email is required
                )
        )
)

When the edit page is downloaded to the client, I will include this object in some format suitable to the client.   The client will then use the jQuery Validation plugin (http://jqueryvalidation.org/) along with the validation object, and client side validate the page.   When the form passes client side validation and is uploaded, PHP will use the same validation object to serverside validate the form (I have this part working as desired).   My question is how should I pass this data to the client?  Originally, I would just use PHP to write some JavaScript.

exit('var myObj='.json_encode($myObj));

Note that when I json_encode the object, the value of $myObj->rules->email->remote->data->username is a string with quotes around it, however, I can easily use PHP to strip these tags before sending it to the client.   As Jacques1 pointed out in http://forums.phpfre...ascript-client/, I should never ever use PHP to generate JavaScript, and should use AJAX to download the JSON directly.  I tried doing the later, but found that a callback function could not be included in the JSON.     Please advise on the best way to accomplish this.   Thank you

I just did a huge import from an app I have been working on. No issues except for this.

I uploaded & imported all files & databases from my wampserver (localhost, local server) to my main online server.

Before I continue with the problem, I have to give you info on how the files work.

I am using a "controller" to view the files. Meaning, from index.php, I call all the files. For example, instead of mysite.com/register.php, its mysite.com/index.php?page=register.

The index defines the doctype & html tags etc.

The other files that are called through index.php are just pure php code, it does not contain the head & body tags etc.

So, the issue is , when the surfer submits a form, i need to set a cookie. this cookie is VERY important.
I cannot get it to work. I am getting the header warnings after submit

Of course, this is to be expected. But I tried it on my local server, & it worked. I am not very familiar with cookies, this is a side of PHP i never really even touched. I know almost everything but that.  So the php code is before the html code on the page, so I figured it was worth a shot.
Im guessing the problem here is, since the code being outputted as index.php code + the form page code. So the cookie is being set after the html tags.

How can I fix this? I need it to work thru the controller. I cannot just make it a single file, all files on the site needs to be thru this controller, otherwise it will mess everything up.

Ino I could just add the code from index.php plus the form page code & just run the php code before all of the html tags, but like I said it has to be called thru index.php.

I appreciate your replies, & I hope you guys dont think im an idiot & can understand my question, im terrible with words!

Hello,

I want to ask you, how to code the next problem

I want to transfer some coins from site A to site B, I have access to both sites. My question is, how can I update table on site B, when I send request for updating on site A. Basicly, I need to transfer value from site A, and site B should receive this value, and update table. How can I do it, what do I need?

I want to run a php file which contains a long process and takes time. If I simply run the file on browsers, the process will be interrupted by any perturbation in the internet connection or closing the browser. How I can force the php process to continue running without connection to my local PC (server side controlling)? I am looking for something like what cron job does (but only one time, not periodically).

So I've coded this to run the while loop once for every server within the the table, there is currently two rows within the table and the while loop wont stop running it just keeps on running until I restart Apache, its producing the same effect as what "while(1)" would do, could anybody tell me what the problem could be?, thanks for your time in advance.


class bot_restart
{
function __construct( )
{
while($CurrentServers = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM xhost_boxs")))
{
echo $CurrentServers['box_id'];
}
}
}

Hi,

Im trying to create a really simple password protected page that is fairly secure but when the user doesnt enter a password the wrong error is displayed. Can anyone see a problem?

Also could someone please check that im properly compairing the hash password of 2135fa0dd7fb99d167b420b7ff34ec98
with what the user entered when its hashed?

login.php

<?php
  session_start();
?>
<?php
  $submit = $_POST['submit'];
  $password = md5($_POST['password']);
  if ($submit)
  {

    if ($password)
    {
      if ($password == '2135fa0dd7fb99d167b420b7ff34ec98')
        {
          $_SESSION['user'] = logged;
          header('Location: page.php'); 
        }
        else
        {
  header('Location: index.php?id=1');
        }
    }
    else
    {
      header('Location: index.php?id=2');
    }
  }
  else
  {
  header('Location: index.php?id=1');
  }
?>

index.php
<?php
  $id=$_REQUEST['id'];
?>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html lang="EN" dir="ltr" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/xml; charset=utf-8" />
    <title>Keys</title>
    <link rel = "stylesheet"
          type = "text/css"
          href = "css/layout.css" />
  </head>
 
  <body>


      <div id="header">
        <h1>Keys</h1>
      </div>

  
      <div id="secondheader">
    
      </div>

  
      <div id="main">
    <form method="POST" action="login.php">
          Password: <input type="password" name="password" onfocus="selected(this)" onblur="notselected(this)">
          <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Login">
        </form>
<br/>
<?php
          if ($id==1)
  {
    echo "Invalid password. Please try again";
  }
  elseif ($id==2)
  {
    echo "Please enter a password";
  }
        ?>

      </div>

  
      <div id="footer">
        
      </div>
  
      <div id="left">
    
      </div>


  </body> 
</html> 

Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I have a PHP script which I want to run from a different IP on my server.

Example of what I want to do:
My main ip: 4.5.6.7
Have several IP's on server.
I want my PHP script (running from CLI) to use cURL with another IP, ay 4.5.6.9

Is this possible to do?

Help would be greatly appreciated!

Hey Guys,

I have a DB with two tables, one is field names, the other is the data.

So for example, I log in and I am user ID 1..... I need to query the DB to show all fields where user_id = 1

Field1 - Data1
Field2 - Data2

etc etc...

This is what I have so far, but I dont get any output...

    $sql = "SELECT * FROM ".WPSC_TABLE_DATA." WHERE `user_id` == .$cu. ORDER BY id DESC";
    $user= $wpdb->get_row($sql);

while($user) {

echo $user->name .' : '. $user->value .'<br />';

}

Can you help please?

I am using MAMP on my MacBook and don't understand why MAMP and my code in NetBeans will not run if I am offline?

If I am trying to execute PHP files locally on my laptop, why should MAMP or Apache of NetBEans care if I do not have an Internet connection?! 

I wanted to show someone something at work where there is no Internet access, but that won't work as it currently stands. 



TomTees