Confi Config PHP

A small PHP script to manage your project-configuration comfortably.

Made to be integrated into any kind of PHP-project.

Developed in the context of Total.HTM Easy.

Confi Config PHP is Open Source.

Why this project?

A one-script solution for all those ever-repeating steps needed to set up a kind-of-safe configuration file structure - it saves me boring time!

Because it is boring to set up a configuration at each specific web-server for each of my clients.

Because it is boring to look up its own configuration of each of my PHP-projects done somehow somewhere different each time.

Who is it for?

Confi Config PHP is made for developers, hackers, coders, etc.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• PHP (>=5) running on a web-server like Apache
• File-Access for PHP-scripts (read and write)

Installing

Copy the project files (as download-able here) to your desired location.

Example-location: http://my-server.com/my-folder/

How to Use

Creating a new Config

See the file: 'config_script.php'. It is a stand-alone PHP-script.

The files that start with 'config_set_...' are your simple setting-files.

1. Text-edit 'config_script.php' and change API_KEY to some random new value.

2. Create and modify the setting files as you need it for your project.

3. Copy config_script.php and the setting-files to your intended location.

4. Call config_script.php for the first time. Example:

http://my-server.com/my-folder/config_script.php?ak=xxx (xxx is the API_KEY)

Now, some 'kind-of-secret' file structure has been set up. You know it worked if the file 'config_dont_touch.php' was created.

In some cases, 'the config_script.php' can not find any write-able folder, and or you want to set some specific folder hardcoded. You can do that at the top of the file 'config_script.php' by setting PATH_HARDCODED to an absolute path.

If you want to reset your current config or create a completely new one, just remove the file 'config_dont_touch.php' and start over.

Using a Config within my PHP code

The following PHP-snippet includes your Config info:

$ok_come_from_api=1;
include('config_dont_touch.php');
 

See the values you have at your hands. You can output the complete Config e.g. by this bit of code:

echo json_encode($GLOBALS['config']);

Some kind-of-secret folders have been created for you. Here you can put your kind-of-secret files.

• $GLOBALS['config']['dir_sec_l'] for your log-files
• $GLOBALS['config']['dir_sec_u'] for user-accounts
• $GLOBALS['config']['dir_sec_d'] for any other data

A simple example for writing a file to the data-folder:

file_put_contents($GLOBALS['config']['dir_sec_d'].'my_filename.y7');   

Its recommended to use the extension .y7 for your kind-of-secret files, just because that extension is further protected from being shown online by some htaccess-files that have been automatically created.

Some meta-information was created as well, accessible like this:

include($GLOBALS['config']['dir_sec']."meta.y7");
echo json_encode($GLOBALS['meta']);

Changing Settings

The config_script reads all files that match 'config_set_*.php'. That means, you can just create new setting-files, useful for grouping if you have lots of settings. However, within one setting file can be an unlimited number of setting values.

The one file called 'config_set_sec.php' is here for secrets. After each call of the config_script the values in this file are emptied.

Use setting-names only once. (Later ones overwrite earlier ones.)

IMPORTANT: To set a setting-value to empty "" does NOT clear the value! Empty settings are ignored and keep set! Instead use these special keywords to clear or completely remove settings: "__CLEAR__" and "__DELETE__"

Here an example setting file such as 'config_set_test.php';

<?php if(!isset($ok_come_from_config_script)) die();
$set_config = array (
  'bool_custom' => 1,
  'minify_css' => 1,
  'double_custom' => 2.23,
  'string_custom' => 'Hello user!',  
);
	

IMPORTANT: After changing settings the config_script needs to be called once, in order to write the changes into the 'kind-of-secret' Config.

Deployment

Just add the config_script to your PHP-project. There is not much that can go wrong, because there is not much code at all.

I usually put the config_script.php and the setting-files into the root directory of the PHP-project the Config belongs to.

Each of my PHP-project just has it's own config_script delivered with it. When I install a project at some server, the first thing I do after copying it all online, is, adapt the settings and call the config_script.

Setting Admin-Pwd

• The setting "__ADMIN__" sets or overwrites the password of the main-admin. Only works inside config_set_sec.php!

Note: Min-chars: 4, no white-space allowed. Otherwise the value is ignored but nevertheless removed.

Note: At the very first call, when the folder-structure is set up, and when "__ADMIN__" is set to a valid value, then the admin-user is created. Otherwise the admin-pwd is overwritten, if the admin-user exists.

Note: This is secure, because somebody needs FTP-access or such to write a file, and then still, the 'config_script.php' would have to be called with the correct API-key. Security-sensitive admins will not even keep the 'config_script.php' at the server. No way for hackers to overwrite the admin-pwd, or lets say: If hackers can set the config they have already been able to do anything on your server. Of course: Use Secure-FTP, and be very very careful with your FTP-accounts. Never give somebody else an FTP-account to your server unless you know the user can never leave it's sub-directory - PHP-user, etc.

Built With

Confi Config PHP is a one-script solution not including any library. It uses basic PHP-functions what might work even with older PHP-versions than 5. Also no special PHP packages needed. It's all about file-read and -write really.

I want to give big thanks to the developers of PHP, and special thanks for the version PHP 7, that is so much faster, saves cost and energy. What I hear about upcoming version 8 is promising as well. E.g. 'Just in Time Compiling'

Thank You, PHP team! https://www.php.net/credits.php

Contributing

Please read CONTRIBUTING.md if you want to be part of this project. You are welcome! Also with your harsh critics or a very strange idea.

Versioning

We use version numbers like V02, V03 for public releases. Internally we use timestamps to identify versions. Such as '20201221' for 21. Dec, 2020.

Authors

• Ernesto Sun
• You are welcome!

License

This project is licensed under the JSON License - see the LICENSE.md file for details

The JSON License is same same to the MIT License, plus one ethical clause. I love it!

Acknowledgments

Thank you, many sources of inspiration. Among them:

• The INNOQ podcast (and spirit): https://www.innoq.com/en/podcast/ (German only)
• ROCA style and the man behind it, Stefan Tilkov: https://roca-style.org/
• The Working Draft podcast: https://workingdraft.de/ (German only)