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Protecting Your PHP Source Code With ionCube Encoder

By Quentin Zervaas, 8 June 2010 PHP Download PDF (1 comment)

Introduction

One of the issues PHP developers face is that PHP is an interpreted language, meaning PHP source code is readable by anybody who downloads your applications. In this article I will show you how to protect your intellectual property by encoding your PHP source code.

The tool we are going to use to protect our code is ionCube PHP Encoder. Before releasing your PHP software, you use the encoder to convert your plain-text PHP files into special encrypted files.

Note: While ionCube PHP Encoder is a commercial product, there is a time-limited trial available for download.

Because your PHP is encoded into a special byte-code (as opposed to just being obfuscated), a loader must be installed on your web server. A loader is a PHP module that must be installed.

Note: Fortunately, ionCube PHP Encoder is commonly used and therefore many web hosts will already have a loader installed.

On the ionCube website there is a loaders page which contains the latest versions of the loader for all supported platforms (you must install the correct loader for your platform).

Note: You will need the loader for your platform installed in order to be able to run code you encode from this article.

Before we proceed, let's take a quick look at an encoded file. Listing 1 shows a basic PHP script.

Listing 1 A basic "Hello World" script (helloworld.php)

<?php
    echo "Hello, world!\n";
?>

We can then run this script through the encoder. While there are many different options available, encoding a script with the default options yields the following PHP file.

Listing 2 Encoded version of "Hello World" (helloworld-enc.php)

<?php //000a8
echo('Site error: the file <b>'.__FILE__.'</b> requires the ionCube PHP Loader '.
basename($__ln).' to be installed by the site administrator.');exit(199);
?>
4+oV5BgRgd22U2z7JoK/KmKPIcszhD8pg3hvN+5vc4HFcsGMn/El/4CMYaLFFzaqguLCeb9su8xn
i0+eWxJg/kwNHRkiBvY1aMf1AvwPf14DIwCvegtJC7cbx9cN5jBjwSspVjhVsQnxFx9oBut6R0Kc
V+OLw6XBTNm5sKpbL6DVm2jqk8Wasm9oJgKLZxBtvVBeP5vZrOiod+L7SoplcmTgtyr5wzS3sEzj
r7ixXPUY4H82MyuzZyjYTkSKkz9qlMzWHddrUHJX3y0zPfDqWDUeD1BibJQJ9BXkP7jb4pdKQv/h
sMqhthNQQRSp6nOJHq8oDDYLE+p403GYs2As9qEI2wNAg6j6ln0BRP7shcbNTb5a8O4VjjLhGDwG
1AYOxaM4R5QneCFr+xYdtEYSep8FW1i9IBzF1FuDa7eMoPDqaQdjTLAPsy5O831yGpAHohx3FzUK
aewZTV+tdru=

While you cannot understand what this code does just by looking at it, your PHP installation with the correct loader installed interprets this just as if it was the code in Listing 1.

Next: Encoding Your PHP Files

Protecting Your PHP Source Code With ionCube Encoder

Introduction

In This Article