Linux, Hosting tips

Please follow the steps given below for installing IonCube on a Linux Plesk Server.

1) Download the tar.gz file compatible from http://downloads.ioncube.com.
wget http://downloads2.ioncube.com/loader…lin_x86.tar.gz

2) Untar the downloaded file.
tar -zxf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86.tar.gz

3) Move the untared file to /usr/lib/php/modules
mv ioncube /usr/lib/php/modules

4) chown -R root:root /usr/lib/php/modules/ioncube

5) vi /etc/php.ini
Add the following line before any other zend_extension

zend_extension=/usr/lib/php/modules/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.1.so

It will be between these two entries

zend_optimizer.version=3.3.0
zend_extension=/usr/local/Zend/lib/ZendExtensionManager.so

Save changes and restart apache in the server.
6) /etc/init.d/httpd restart

Now Ioncube is Installed on the server and can be verified by php -v command.
[root@server ~]# php -v
PHP 5.1.6 (cli) (built: xx xx xxxxx xx:xx:xx)
Zend Engine v2.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies
with the ionCube PHP Loader v3.1.32, Copyright (c) 2002-2007, by ionCube Ltd., and
with Zend Extension Manager v1.2.2, Copyright (c) 2003-2007, by Zend Technologies
with Zend Optimizer v3.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2007, by Zend Technologies

Note that ionCube Loader is a Zend-Engine extension and not a module, you need to specify the Loader using ‘zend_extension’ in the loaded php.ini file for the php version.