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Sorry for the weird question, but I'm in a weird predicament. From the beginning: I asked my webhost to enable PDO on my server, so they did - and my websites crashed. I couldn't figure out what the problem was, so I just asked them to disable PDO.

That restored my home pages, but it didn't fix another problem - my inter-site includes no longer work. All my sites are linked together into one CMS, including files from the main site. I've been doing this for more than ten years, so I was snowed when a support tech told me you can't include files between two CPanel accounts - even though I've been doing it???

I have a hosting plan that allows me to host multiple domains, each with its own CPanel. Anyway, I asked them to disable PDO, but my includes still aren't working.

So I wondered if someone can tell me what's going on here. It's obviously possible to include files between two CPanel accounts, because I did it. So why should it suddenly be a problem? Does CPanel somehow discourage the practice by actively impeding the use of includes? In other words, is it a technical problem or an administrative one?

I'm totally confused.

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1 Answer 1

It's possible, usually - unless they've something weird in place - as long as you know the file locations, and the program has access to it. So you have to make sure that the user the httpd (apache I presume) is running with, has access to said files, and then include them with the correct directory.

Hell I used to put include files into a completely different directory on our servers, and it worked.

I think you might need to use relative path, though.

(And don't forget that includes are always relative from the actual main file - the one called. If you're including from an included file this can throw you off.)

Oh, and of course support don't want you to do this, they want all and every account to be a separate entity. Mind you; you could actually run all these sites from a single account easily with some url-rewriting via parking all domains on one account.

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How do you link to a foreign website with a relative path? This is what my current includes look like: include ("/home/mysite2/public_html/2B/dbc.php"); where mysite2 is actually more of a username, I guess. Someone told me I should be using OOP includes, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. –  David Blomstrom Apr 12 at 2:29
Relative path would be something like "../../../otheraccount/public_html/include_this.php" - but I'm not sure if this is necessary. I can try :) –  Steve Horvath Apr 12 at 2:31
ah, worked it out; the account public_html directory needs to be readable by the web server running on the other account - depending on what mode the server is running PHP (a cgi variant or apache mod) you may need to chmod 750 or 755 on it. This, however, allows anyone on that server to scan and read your files... –  Steve Horvath Apr 12 at 2:45
Wow, I thought web design was supposed to get easier after fifteen years? ;) Anyway, thanks for finding out that info for me. At looks like my websites may simply be fried. –  David Blomstrom Apr 12 at 2:47
that's not a good place to be - best of luck –  Steve Horvath Apr 12 at 2:48

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