Does iPage Support PHP?
PHP is one of the most used programming languages for building dynamic websites. If you are building your website using PHP, you need a web hosting service, which supports this language. Most likely you came across iPage.
Probably you want to know whether iPage supports PHP or not. You might also want to know the answer to following questions: What version of PHP does iPage support? Is there a way to change PHP version on iPage?
In short, Yes! iPage does support PHP so you can upload your PHP website to their server. At time of writing iPage supports the following versions: 5.3, 5.5, 5.6, 7.0, 7.1.
In the future some of the older versions will likely be unsupported, while new versions will be added upon release. For example PHP 5.2 is no longer supported.
For more information on the company, please read my detailed iPage review, where I give you insides about server performance, uptime and tips on how to use your account.
How to Change PHP Version?
Changing the PHP version at iPage is straightforward:
- Login to your control panel and find the Additional Tools section
- Click on CGI and Scripted Language Support
- On the next page, click on PHP Scripting
- Here you will see the current version of PHP, which is active on your account
- Choose the version you need and click Set
- After few seconds, you are ready to use the new PHP version
Can You Edit the PHP.ini File?
You can edit the php.ini file right on the page where you did change the version.
- Click on the Edit button
- Make changes to the php.ini file right in your browser
- Click the Save button
You can edit the php.ini file anytime later too. Some directives and variables might be unavailable due to security reasons. To protect their servers from malicious activities, iPage will disable some PHP functions that are used for hacking.
How to Check PHP info?
If you want to check the PHP configuration settings and available predefined variables on iPage, you should simply use the following code in a blank PHP file:
Save this file to info.php for example, and upload it to your website using FTP or the FileManager. Accessing this file, it will output all the information about PHP’s configuration:
yourwebsite.com/info.php
PHP Version for Scripts (WordPress & Joomla)
PHP version is crucial for many scripts. WordPress 4.9+ for instance requires a minimum PHP version of 5.6+ while Joomla 4+ will only run on PHP 7.0+.
If the PHP version of your account is older than the minimum required for these scripts, you will not be able to install it.
Also if you already running WordPress or Joomla on your iPage server, and you downgrade PHP for any reason, your websites will stop working.
So, if you are using scripts on iPage, watch out what PHP version they require in order to avoid any misconfiguration.
Adding a MySQL Database
If you are working with PHP, probably you also need a MySQL database. Creating a new database and user is very easy.
- Login to your iPage control panel and click on MySQL Database
- In the Manage Databases tab, click on the Add Database
- Insert database name, user name and password
- Connect your PHP script to your database
Here is a quick example on how to connect your PHP script with a MySQL database:
$mysql_host = 'localhost'; # use your mysql host host (ussually 127.0.0.1)
$mysql_user = 'database_user'; # use your mysql user here
$mysql_pass = 'database_user_pass'; # use your mysql user password here
$mysql_database = 'database_name'; # use your mysql database name here
?>
Please note, that at iPage you might need to use a custom server name instead localhost. Usually it something like this:
Check your control panel or contact support for correct server name.
Learn PHP
If you are new to PHP language, here are some really great resources where you can learn how to code in PHP:
- http://www.learn-php.org/
- https://www.w3schools.com/pHP/default.asp
- http://php.net/
iPage’s knowledge base also have lots of tutorials on PHP.
Conclusion
I really hope this quick guide has helped you to get started with PHP on your iPage hosting account. If you might have any question, feel free to comment below, or submit a ticket to iPage support.
If you want to setup an email for your website at iPage, please check out my other tutorial.