8 Configure PHP
Smallsite Design uses the PHP programming language, but it needs to have the correct version and other settings.
Fortunately, cPanel allows configuring a PHP version before committing to it. This enables ensuring Smallsite Design can work with it without risking breaking the site.
For most of the steps here, cPanel responses usually occur after several seconds delay, often accompanied by an animation indicating its taking its time, and for settings, will display a
Do not change any other options or settings.
Some of the cited options may not be available, usually because the hosting provider has confined them to safe settings in order to protect their systems. The critical ones are the required extensions and allowing uploads of sufficient size.
Steps
△☰ Indicates the step has learning notes. Click its checkbox to show them.
The role to perform this procedure is: Site owner.
if not already.
by clicking the
by selecting an option from the
by performing:
by clicking on one of the
Sometimes a hoster may not fully set up a PHP version to support all extensions before enabling it. Return to step 3 to select an 8 or later version that does. If a Smallsite Design installation shows a Fail for one of more of these, select another version of PHP.
by clicking the checkbox for each of the remaining required but unchecked extensions.
by performing:
by clicking on the
by unchecking the
by unchecking the
by replacing the text in the UTC.
by unchecking the
Errors in the application's code are logged but their verbose text does not need to appear in pages.
by unchecking the
Preventing knowledge of whether a site runs on PHP or which version of it may help to mitigate against targeted attacks on the site.
by checking the
File uploading is required for showing images or other files, and updating the site's code or its content.
by selecting at least the 32M option for each of the
If the site has multimedia files, these settings need to be at least more than the largest of them, as well as handling uploading of a compressed archive that may contain several such files. For example, a high-quality, 15-second, 30fps MP4 video will be up to 15MB. For a 60fps or 1080p version, up that to 25MB.
by checking the
This allows Smallsite Design to compress pages but leave images and other files in their native compressed formats. Compression attacks like BREACH are prevented by randomising tokens. Settings in the site's .htaccess file ensure the compression setting in cPanel's
by clicking the