Accessing content from another server

[crombinator]

So here is the not so simple situation. In our work environment one
entity controls access to servers. In our own webspace they have setup
a user to access a mysql database. We brought in a programmer who
programmed a web app to access/store data in that database. So now we
have this program able to do everything we want to display our data.

The problem we are running into now is that now we want to go live the
"entity" will not allow us to access their own database to setup the
tables there, etc. Is there anyway that I can include the content from
my pages hosted in our controlled space in a page in their webspace?

So as an example, let's say the app is a blogging tool. I can access
the blogging tool all I want from my home server, but evil webhost does
not give me access to SQL databases at all. Is there anyway I can then
run the PHP app on evil webhosts server?

[Miguel Cruz]

cr*********@gmail.com wrote:

So here is the not so simple situation. In our work environment one
entity controls access to servers. In our own webspace they have setup
a user to access a mysql database. We brought in a programmer who
programmed a web app to access/store data in that database. So now we
have this program able to do everything we want to display our data.

The problem we are running into now is that now we want to go live the
"entity" will not allow us to access their own database to setup the
tables there, etc. Is there anyway that I can include the content from
my pages hosted in our controlled space in a page in their webspace?

So as an example, let's say the app is a blogging tool. I can access
the blogging tool all I want from my home server, but evil webhost does
not give me access to SQL databases at all. Is there anyway I can then
run the PHP app on evil webhosts server?

I really don't understand the nature of the limitation that you're
under, or the resources you have available.

You cannot have a database at evil webhost's location? But you can run
PHP there? Can't you just have your PHP code connect to a database
elsewhere? You don't have to put "localhost" as the first argument to
mysql_connect, you know.

Otherwise, if you have another web server, you could proxy the pages
that require database access. But then why not just host everything
there?

Do you need web users to be able to modify the database or do elaborate
queries against it? Maybe you can just use wget to mirror the site as
static HTML and copy that to evil webhost's server.

There are a zillion ways to deal with this general category of problems
but without more information it's hard to figure out which one might be
the best.

miguel
--
Photos from 40 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Malaysia; Thailand; Singapore; Spain; Morocco
Airports of the world: http://airport.u.nu

[crombinator]

Miguel Cruz wrote:
<snip>

There are a zillion ways to deal with this general category of problems
but without more information it's hard to figure out which one might be
the best.

miguel
--
Photos from 40 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Malaysia; Thailand; Singapore; Spain; Morocco
Airports of the world: http://airport.u.nu

To lay it out a bit better:

1. I can do anything I want in my webspace (access a database, place
..htaccess pages, create CGI scripts, etc).
2. Our company has a branding requirement for "live" pages so in order
to put a web page in production I have to place it through a CMS. The
CMS does allow me access to pretty much any PHP function I want. The
only problem is the server this lives on we are not allowed to anything
except place content through the CMS.
3. The content is a matching system to match prospective mentors to
mentee's(?). Now I can work with the "real" code, and I am comfortable
doing this, but I just cannot seem to find a way to get that code to
run outside of our own personal server space.

Hopefully that is more clear because I do not want to give too much
away as technically I am not allowed to post during work hours. :D

[Miguel Cruz]

cr*********@gmail.com wrote:

1. I can do anything I want in my webspace (access a database, place
.htaccess pages, create CGI scripts, etc).

In this case, can you just locate a MySQL server elsewhere and have your
PHP talk to it? If it's close by on the network, performance shouldn't
be an issue.

Hopefully that is more clear because I do not want to give too much
away as technically I am not allowed to post during work hours. :D

I wouldn't expect a Canadian university to be so draconian.

miguel
--
Photos from 40 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Malaysia; Thailand; Singapore; Spain; Morocco
Airports of the world: http://airport.u.nu