PHP Hosting

Setting up a PHP website on the DCISM web server is straightforward, it works just like hosting a static site (e.g., plain HTML). You upload your PHP files to your subdomain folder (like ~/your-domain.dcism.org/), and they’ll run automatically. If you want your PHP site to use a database, though, you’ll need to connect it to the DCISM MySQL database. Here’s how to do that when your site is running on the server itself, and what to do if you want to access that database from your own computer.

Accessing the Database

The DCISM MySQL database runs on the same server as your website, listening on port 3306 (the standard MySQL port). If your PHP app is already hosted on web.dcism.org, connecting to the database is simple: you just need a configuration file to tell PHP where to find it.

config.php

<?php 
    define("DB_HOST", "localhost:3306");      // The database is on the same server, port 3306
    define("DB_USER", "s22103604_chiase");    // Your database username
    define("DB_PASS", "your_password_here");  // Your database password
    define("DB_NAME", "s22103604_chiase");    // Your database name
?>

• DB_HOST is set to localhost:3306 because the database is on the same server as your PHP app (web.dcism.org). The :3306 part specifies the port MySQL uses.
• DB_USER and DB_NAME match what you set up in your admin control panel (e.g., s22103604_chiase in my case). These are usually the same for simplicity.
• DB_PASS is your password. Replace your_password_here with the real one.

Here’s the tricky part: the setup above only works when your PHP app is running on the DCISM web server. If you try to run the same app on your own computer (locally) with that config.php, it won’t connect. Why? Because localhost on your computer means your computer, not web.dcism.org, and you probably don’t have a database named s22103604_chiase running locally on port 3306. Plus, the DCISM database isn’t set up to accept connections from outside the server, no external address like db.dcism.org is provided.

To solve this and work with the DCISM database from your local machine (e.g., for development), you need to create a bridge between your computer and the server. This bridge is called an SSH tunnel.

Creating the SSH Tunnel

An SSH tunnel lets you securely “forward” a port from your local machine to the server. In this case, you’ll make your computer’s port(s) (e.g., 3306, 3307..) connect to the server’s MySQL port (3306). Once the tunnel is active, your local app can talk to the DCISM database as if it were running on the server.

In order to create an SSH tunnel, we must port forward port :3306 so we can access it in our local machine. The command for that is:

ssh -v -p 22077 -L 3306:localhost:3306 s22103604@web.dcism.org

NOTE

Replace s22103604@web.dcism.org with your own username. The first port 3306 specifies an open port in your local machine, and the second 3306 is the server's port.

The -v argument enables "verbose" mode where it shows debug information about the SSH connection. If ever port 3306 is not open in your machine, change it to any port that is available. In most cases, the port after, 3307 is usually free.

Example Error (Port 3306 is in use)

debug1: Local forwarding listening on ::1 port 3306.
bind [::1]:3306: Address already in use
debug1: Local forwarding listening on 127.0.0.1 port 3306.
bind [127.0.0.1]:3306: Address already in use
channel_setup_fwd_listener_tcpip: cannot listen to port: 3306
Could not request local forwarding.

To fix, simply port forward it to a free port (Try 3307 first)

ssh -v -p 22077 -L 3307:localhost:3306 s22103604@web.dcism.org

If it is successful, it should show these debug messages:

debug1: Local connections to LOCALHOST:3307 forwarded to remote address localhost:3306
debug1: Local forwarding listening on ::1 port 3307.
debug1: Local forwarding listening on 127.0.0.1 port 3307.
debug1: Connection to port 3307 forwarding to localhost port 3306 requested.
debug1: channel 3: new direct-tcpip [direct-tcpip] (inactive timeout: 0)

Now that the port :3306 is now forwarded, we can now use that in our config.php.

NOTE

If you changed the port from 3306 to 3307, make sure to also change your config.php to utilize localhost:3307 instead of localhost:3306.

config.php if you did -L 3307:localhost:3306

define("DB_HOST", "localhost:3307");

Using the config

To use the config file, simply import it in your db connection file (or anything alternative) and declare a new mysqli connection.

db_connection.php

<?php
    // Include the config file
    require_once 'config.php';

    // Create a connection
    $conn = new mysqli(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS, DB_NAME);

    // Check the connection
    if ($conn->connect_error) {
        die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
    }
    echo "Connected successfully to the database!";
    // use the $conn anywhere in your codebase...
?>

Or you can directly use it in the mysqli object (not really recommended)

<?php
    // No config include

    // Create a connection
    $conn = new mysqli("localhost:3306", // DB_HOST
                        "s22103604_chiase", // DB_USER
                        "your_password", // DB_PASS
                        "s22103604_chiase"); // DB_NAME

    // Check the connection
    if ($conn->connect_error) {
        die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
    }
    echo "Connected successfully to the database!";
    // use the $conn anywhere in your codebase...
?>

Concrete Steps on PHP Hosting

1. PHP hosting is the same as static site hosting.
2. When you need to access a database, create a config.php file with your define variables.
3. Set the DB_HOST to localhost:3306.
4. Set the DB_USER and DB_NAME to your database name you created on the admin control panel.
5. Set the password.
6. If you want to access the database remotely for yourself, create an SSH Tunnel.
7. Adjust the config.php if you used port 3307 instead of 3306.
8. Create a new mysqli connection and pass the DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASS and DB_NAME as arguments. Make sure config.php is included through require_once in your file with the mysqli connection.
9. The database connection and PHP application should now be working.