Installing 0.9.6 on hosting service (perhaps 1and1)

[Raysir]

I would like to install 0.9.6 on a hosting service. I have always installed Zoph on my own Linux servers. I have never installed Zoph on a hosting service so would appreciate any help that is available. I have questions like:

1. Where should I place the Zoph actual photo directory that is normally place at /var? (I only have access to the webroot directories.)
2. Where should the zoph.ini be placed? I suppose I have greatly compromised security if I placed it in the web root?
3. 1and1 does not support MySQL 5.6 (only 5.5). Would this be a show-stopper?
4. Does anyone know of a hosting service that does completely meet the requirements of Zoph 0.9.6?

Thanks,
Ray

[jeroenrnl]

• You can put your photo directory anywhere in, or out of the webroot, just remember that any file in the webroot can be accessed from the Internet without going through Zoph's access checking. You can remedy that with .htaccess files, if the host supports it, but depending on your experience it can be quite a tedious task to get that right. And if your webhost decides to stop supporting .htaccess or breaks it during an update, all your photos will be out in the open.
• Yes, zoph.ini must definately be placed outside the webroot, or the Internet will know your DB-password.
• MySQL 5.5 should not be a problem. I don't think I've used any features that are only available on 5.6 or higher. Also, MySQL 5.5 is not EoL, so if you do run into problems, feel free to file a bug. However, I would seriously reconsider choosing a webhost that is so far behind in their versions... 5.7 came out over two years ago!
• I can't give any real advice on webhosting, but I've had great experience with transip.nl, but I've only done dns-hosting and domain services with them. They are cheap, you can get a huge amount (1TB) of free diskspace with them, I'm just not sure if they provide their services outsite the Netherlands. Depending on you location, hosting out of a Dutch datacenter might not be a good idea anyway.
  There are even companies advertising "Zoph hosting", but I doubt if they have ever really done it, I thing they just Googled for all the webapps they could think off and made an advertising page for all off them :-) https://www.siteground.com/zoph-hosting.htm https://www.arvixe.com/Zoph_hosting https://www.dmsolutions.de/zoph-hosting.html

[Raysir]

Thank you very much. Your comments (all of them) were very helpful. I am working with 1&1 to try to learn how I can have a directory outside of the webspace.
Ray

[jeroenrnl]

I think this is al resolved now, feel free to reopen if not.