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T
TjmSmith
Inspiring
August 17, 2011
Question

WEB Host Check

  • August 17, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 2316 views

A word to the wise; check out your ISP capabilities/support fully before moving on with CMS development.

Just learned the hard way.  I've had a static site on an ISP that provides PHP/MySQL service.  I built the DW5.5 CS 'test web site' (check_php) from the guide by David Powers and it worked fine on my local testing computer (XAMPP...).  I then tried to create the MySQL database on the live system and found they were using what apparently is an older version of 'everything'!!!.  Access to the entire site is provided via cPanel.  The create database function does not allow 'NON-alphanumeric' characters in the DB name (so much for my 'check_php' work!).

I then created a (test) database without the underscore and was able to upload the sample data (index & users) from Mr Powers examples; ok so far.  Then tried to add MySQL users:  Add New User is limited to seven characters (ok I guess but hampering from an end user point of view).  Did all the work to add the new user and on clicking 'create' it responds w/page 'success' but on return to the management screen the newly created user never appears

Sent 'comments/feedback' message yesterday; no response as of now.

I guess a new ISP is in order.

Tom

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

Lon_Winters
Lon_Winters
Inspiring
August 17, 2011

Are you equating ISP with web hosting, or are you using the hosting that some ISPs provide as yo "personal web space". Your ISP is ther mainly just to provide you with Internet access, and any other of these features they may offer are bound to be sub-standard. If that's the case, then you need an account with a real web hosting provider who will have the latest versions of PHP and MySQL installed.

T
TjmSmithAuthor
Inspiring
August 18, 2011

Ooops!  No question about it, I was referring to my web hosting service (not my ISP).  I do know the difference but the frustration just got in the way.  Thanks for pointing it out though.

Anyone else having difficulty with the cPanel interface on their hosting service?

Tom

Rob Hecker2
Rob Hecker2
Legend
August 18, 2011

Rob.., Lon...;

Thanks for input.  Not to be really argumentative, although I'm still trying to work thru connection details, my initial point was to recommend users check their Hosts operation before going too far along in local development.  As you have noted, in following a tutorial (I'm new to DW5.5), the sample therein used a database name of 'php_test' and a user name of 'phptestuser'.  After developing the basics of the sample site (which worked fine on my local hosting machine running a very recently downloaded XAMPP), I uploaded my files to my online host and, using their cPanel interface, tried to create the database and test user.

The 'create' database function would not let me use an underscore in the name.

The 'add' user function would not let me use a name longer than 7 characters and they had to all be alphanumeric.

As well, the 'add' user function, with 7 chars, reported 'successfully added' but the user never shows in the 'list of users' (of course, this part I'm trying to resolve with the host's tech team).

I have noted that in my local setup (new XAMPP), the MyPHPadmin is version 3.3.9 vs host reports version 3.2.4 and for MySQL server version mine is v:5.5.8 vs host's 5.0.91 community.

Although the 'naming conventions' don't really cause a big problem, it would have been great to have discovered the limitations early and that was my 'word to the wise'.

Thanks very much for your support.  Siince the forum doesn't seem to allow the specific segration of messages by subject, I'm seeing just about everything and your input/replies are informative and super.  A great job and I'm sure welcomed by everyone.

Tom


Tom, I see, you made an assumption that the environments should be the same. There can actually be many differences that can cause mysterious and frustrating issues. It's actually amazing that the apache environment on a Windows desktop is so compatible with the environment on a Linux server. For instance, PHP can be run as DSO, CGI or SuPHP. Your shared host probably runs it as SuPHP, but I run my own VPS server as DSO (better security). You see, you probably thought that PHP is PHP, and the only difference would be the version, but there can be many differences, and each web host has to make decisions regarding how to set up the services.

Yes, the naming convention isn't such a big issue. As you dig deeper into server side programming, you're going to wish all your environmental mysteries were that simple.

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