Help With Custom PHP4

Hi,

I've just made an account with DreamHost recently and I am loving it so far. The features and service are awsome. But I am having a bit of a problem. Prior to making an account on DH I purchased a Flash Chat software, to add some more life to my website alongside the forums.

I noticed that it was under heavy strain when many users go on at once. This seemed to be a bit of a hassle. The author of this software implemented a unique script within the software itself. But this 'script' or whatever requires a certain feature to be open and available within PHP, yet that feature is not on DreamHost's default PHP settings.

I noticed that the only way to get it available to me was to 'compile' it myself. That's where I am severely having problems. I have been looking for help on it for some time now and I have found nothing. I keep trying to follow the Wiki's instructions but I really don't know that much about SSH and all that. And I was only bearly capable of logging into the server in SSH mode.

I would give anything if someone could offer a little advice as to what I am supposed to do to install it or get it working.

Thanks in advance..

What software package did you purchase? If it is a chat server that allows multiple users to login, it would seem to me that it is running a persistent process on the server. This type of application is sometimes forbidden by DH, depending on the amount of system resources they consume, so that might be something to look into.

From the wiki:

What is your persistent (background) process policy?

We define persistent/background processes as any unix user's command running non-interactively. That is, it runs while you aren't actively sitting there interacting with it through a shell window.

Firstly, we reserve the right to kill any user process on a shared server without warning or prior notification at our discretion.

We don't just do this capriciously though! We do this if the process is in any way adversely affecting the smooth functioning of your shared server. Of course if you have a dedicated server you can run whatever (LEGAL) processes you'd like, you should just be prepared for the consequences they may have on your machine.

* IRC-related persistent processes of any kind (including, but not limited to, bots, bouncers, etc.) are STRICTLY PROHIBITED, and are in violation of our TOS (http://www.dreamhost.com/tos.html).
* BitTorrent-related processes are not allowed.
* Streaming Audio or Video servers of any kind are not allowed on shared hosting servers.
* Running programs via cron is allowed provided you don't use excessive system resources.

If you want to set something up and have any questions just ask our friendly tech support team, they don't bite. :)

http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/KB_/_Unix_/_Cron_Jobs_and_Persistent_Processes#What_is_your_persistent_.28background.29_process_policy.3F

BC Tech
Team Shocker

Thanks for the reply,

The software only consumes a fairly decent amount of resources.. Only when more users are coming into the chat system.

Since it is in Flash format it will take consecutively more and more bandwidth and CPU as more users come in. The script the author made that came with it has two choices to remedy the immense resource consumption: 'Crontab' and a 'Socket Server Connection'.

I am having an awfully hard time with SSH and such, and it seems that it is the only way I could get either one.
I wouldn't mind if I could atleast get one of the two up.

I doubt that it is in anyway illegal. It is a very simple yet powerful software built mainly in PHP and Flash.
I don't think there is anything bad about it. I have tried it out on a few other servers and nothing seemed wrong..

I hope I can get this problem solved soon. I hate for more users come on the chat and hardly be able to get a message out until they fall asleep.

Thanks