basedir issue, am I reading this right?

Question

Warning: touch() [function.touch]: open_basedir restriction in effect. File() is not within the allowed path(s): (/var/www/vhosts/site.com/httpdocs/) in /var/www/vhosts/site.com/httpdocs/Manuals/updater.php on line 5 There was an error loading your Manual, please press the back button and try again.

im trying to figure out why the heck this isn't working - currently, I am using plesk, and it is set to default, which should be working as this is within a subdirectory of the httpdocs...

any ideas?

UPDATER.PHP

<?php
//    $URL="manualframe.php";
$URL=$_GET["URL"];
//    header( 'Location: '.$URL.'' ) ;
if (touch($URL)) {
echo 'loading!';
} else {
echo 'There was an error loading your Manual, please press the back button and try again.';
}
echo '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;URL='.$URL.'">';
?>

Answer 1

Would the Manuals directory be a symlink to a directory outside the webroot by any chance?

open_basedir is also in effect on symlinks within your allowed path(s).

See the PHP manual on open_basedir for more information, which states:

When a script tries to open a file with, for example, fopen() or gzopen(), the location of the file is checked. When the file is outside the specified directory-tree, PHP will refuse to open it. All symbolic links are resolved, so it's not possible to avoid this restriction with a symlink. If the file doesn't exist then the symlink couldn't be resolved and the filename is compared to (a resolved) open_basedir .

Answer 2

Looks like PHP is running in Safe Mode. This restriction means you can't read any files outside your web root. That's probably what updater.php is trying to do.