Background
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I am using a web hosting company that does not allow me to compile anything and I would like to use the mcrypt library in my PHP scripts.

I have installed a Centos Linux distro locally and have worked out that I can use the library without re-compiling PHP by just calling mcrypt from inside my scripts. This works fine locally.

However I just discovered I dont have access to the /usr/lib tree or anything else I had taken for granted and only have a cgi-bin directory to run binaries from

The Question
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So my question is - would it be possible for me to copy compiled libraries (libmcrypt, mhash and the mcrypt code) to the cgi-bin tree and have a way to make them work bearing in mind I can not:

1. modify ld.so.conf
2. run ldconfig

Obiously on a Widoze machine I'd just copy the executable somewhere in the existing search path & run it but I dont know if this is possible under linux (theres big gaps in my knowledge at the moment)

Any info about using these libraries without having (What I assumed were) basic system access would be welcome.

I do have a fallback solution but it would be really painful to implement.

I'm happy to script/program solutions for this in any language.

If this simply can't be done I'd appreciate someone just telling me.


thanks

john

Before doing that check with your service provider, if they don't allow these programs (which is what it sounds like), you can expect to get a very nasty email from them in the near future. Most of the providers I've been with allow compiled CGI programs only if the source is also somewhere they can view. Policies vary however.
To answer your question there is no way to tell if it will work unless you try it.
Build a test compiled program that just outputs a hello world page when run.
It sounds like they are running the web server in a chrooted environment and have only copied certain libraries over.

you will most likely in the job controll setup somehow set the shell variable
LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include the libs

Thanks for the replies - I was half afraid everyone would just laugh
and go away tutting ;-)

I didnt want to just try this locally as I couldnt be sure I'd removed
what I'd already installed totally. I guess I could just format and re-install the OS
from scratch ... hmm ...maybe I'll do that. I dont want to try it on the host untill I've
proved it locally.

Just knowing it might be possible makes it worth investing the time - I did see
the LD_LIBRARY_PATH information in the docs but as I mentioned my Linux skills are very sparse at the moment and I wasn't sure about exactly what it would allow me to do. I'll try that too.

I'm not worried about angry emails - I suspect I will need to find another host anyway if I can't get easier use of what seem to be standard packages. I dont need root access but something a little better than the terse (to say the least) respnses I get to my requests for help on what I can and can't do are going to be essential.

again thanks for the pointers.

john