Step 6 – Verify CodeIgniter configuration. Is everything OK?

(created at: December 3, 2014; last update: December 7, 2015)

We’ve installed CodeIgniter framework in 5 steps (or less, depends on how you count…). Now everything should be OK.

But is it? To see if everything is OK with your fresh installation of CodeIgniter, you would have to look in a lot of files. So why not make a controller that can take a look in various location and present you the status of your CodeIgniter installation? It’s like a phpinfo() of your CodeIgniter

Let’s do it. For those who are too busy or too scared to copy/paste long parts of code, I’ve made a zip archive with the files so that you can only look at the important parts in here and then just put the files where they belong. Also, if you have some proposals to change the files, you can find them on Github (https://github.com/avenirer/CI-configuration-verifier).

We create a file named Verify.php inside application/controllers, and write the following lines:

<?php if (!defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

class Verify extends CI_Controller
{
  public function __construct()
  {
    parent::__construct();

First of all we need to make sure we are in a development environment or at least that this controller can be seen only by your IP address (you’ll have to replace XXX.XXX.XXX with your IP address, of course):

    // first of all we need to make sure we are in a development environment or at least that this controller can be seen only by your IP address (you'll have to replace XXX.XXX.XXX with your IP address, of course)
    if(ENVIRONMENT!=='development' || $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']!=='XXX.XXX.XXX')
    {
      $this->load->helper('url');
      redirect('/');
    }
  }

Now that we’ve finished the constructor, let’s move on to our main method, the index(). We will start by getting the environment of our CI app:

  public function index()
  {
    // we should retrieve the environment we are into
    $data['environment'] = ENVIRONMENT;

The next thing we do is to see what classes, helpers and models are loaded by default. For this we can use some of the Loader.php properties. Being protected, the properties cannot be accessed directly, so we will need to make some getters in a MY_Loader.php. After we’ve done the Controller we will create a MY_Loader.php. Now let’s see what important info can we retrieve from the Loader.php:

    // we need to see what classes are loaded by default. get_loaded_classes() is not a native Loader method, but a method from MY_Loader. It retrieves the list of classes that are loaded (which in Loader.php is actually protected)
    $data['loaded_classes'] = $this->load->get_loaded_classes();
    // same as before, a method from MY_Loader that retrieves helpers
    $data['loaded_helpers'] = $this->load->get_loaded_helpers();
    // same as before, a method from MY_Loader that retrieves the models loaded
    $data['loaded_models'] = $this->load->get_loaded_models();

Now we will retrieve everything that can be found inside the config.php file:

    // also retrieve the config data
    $data['config'] = $this->config->config;

After that, let’s turn to our database. First of all, do we have a database connection established by default (with autoload – which I don’t recommend and you will see why in a next step)? If we do have the connection established let’s see what are the parameters of the connection:

    // now we will see if a connection to the database is established already (ie: if is "autoloaded"). We start by creating the message for not loaded.
    $data['loaded_database'] = 'Database is not loaded';
    // if we find that the connection is established...
    if (isset($this->db) && $this->db->conn_id !== FALSE) {
      // ...we will modify the message
      $data['loaded_database'] = 'Database is loaded and connected';
      // ...and retrieve the database settings
      $data['db_settings'] = array(
        'dsn' => $this->db->dsn,
        'hostname' => $this->db->hostname,
        'port' => $this->db->port,
        'username' => '***',
        'password' => '***',
        'database' => '***',
        // if you are sure that only the right eyes will see the controller, you can uncomment the three lines below
        //'username' => $this->db->username,
        //'password' => $this->db->password,
        //'database' => $this->db->database,
        'driver' => $this->db->dbdriver,
        'dbprefix' => $this->db->dbprefix,
        'pconnect' => $this->db->pconnect,
        'db_debug' => $this->db->db_debug,
        'cache_on' => $this->db->cache_on,
        'cachedir' => $this->db->cachedir,
        'char_set' => $this->db->char_set,
        'dbcollat' => $this->db->dbcollat,
        'swap_pre' => $this->db->swap_pre,
        'autoinit' => $this->db->autoinit,
        'encrypt' => $this->db->encrypt,
        'compress' => $this->db->compress,
        'stricton' => $this->db->stricton,
        'failover' => $this->db->failover,
        'save_queries' => $this->db->save_queries
      );
    }

Now we should verify that the directories that should be writable by our Framework are indeed writable:

    // look for the cache path
    $cache_path = ($this->config->item('cache_path') === '') ? APPPATH.'cache/' : $this->config->item('cache_path');
    // and verify that it is writable
    if(is_really_writable($cache_path))
    {
      $data['writable_cache'] = TRUE;
    }
    // also look for the logs path
    $log_path = ($this->config->item('log_path') === '') ? APPPATH.'logs/' : $this->config->item('log_path');
    // and verify if is writable
    if(is_really_writable($log_path))
    {
       $data['writable_logs'] = TRUE;
    }

Optionally, if you think you will have some directories where you or your users will upload files, you can add another check for those directories:

    // optionally you can look for other writable directories. In this case I have an uploads directory in public folder
    $this->load->helper('url');
    $uploads_path = base_url().'uploads';
    if(is_really_writable($uploads_path))
    {
      $data['writable_uploads'] = $uploads_path.' is writable';
    }
    else
    {
      $data['writable_uploads'] = '<span class="red"><strong>'.$uploads_path.'</strong> is not writable</span>';
    }

I guess we have all we need for now. It’s time to load our view so that we can show our analysis results:

    // now we load the view, passing the data to it
    $this->load->view('verify_view', $data);
  }
}
/* End of file 'Verify' */
/* Location: ./application/controllers/Verify.php */

As you can see at lines 19 to 24 we used some methods that are not native to the framework. Being loader methods, we must write a MY_Loader.php file inside application/core that extends the Loader controller. So let’s create the file and write the following lines:

<?php
defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed');

class MY_Loader extends CI_Loader {
    function __construct() {
        parent::__construct();
    }

    public function get_loaded_classes()
    {
        return $this->_ci_classes;
    }
    public function get_loaded_helpers()
    {
        $loaded_helpers = array();
        if(sizeof($this->_ci_helpers)!== 0) {
            foreach ($this->_ci_helpers as $key => $value)
            {
                $loaded_helpers[] = $key;
            }
        }
        return $loaded_helpers;
    }
    public function get_loaded_models()
    {
        return $this->_ci_models;
    }
}
/* End of file 'MY_Loader' */
/* Location: ./application/core/MY_Loader.php */

Now, all we have to do is write the view that will display the data. So, create verify_view.php inside application/views with the following lines:

<?php defined('BASEPATH') OR exit('No direct script access allowed'); ?>
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>Verify my Codeigniter Framework</title>
    <style>
        /* a small css reset */
        html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre, a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code, del, dfn, em, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp, small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var, b, u, i, center, dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li, fieldset, form, label, legend, table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td, article, aside, canvas, details, embed, figure, figcaption, footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, output, ruby, section, summary, time, mark, audio, video {padding: 0; border: 0; font-size: 100%; font: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;}
        article, aside, details, figcaption, figure, footer, header, hgroup, menu, nav, section {display: block;}
        body {line-height: 1;}
        /* and some styling */
        strong {font-weight:bold;}
        body {font-family: "Arial", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size: 14px;background-color: #fefedc;color: #1f191d;}
        ul {list-style: none;}
        h1 {font-size: 24px;font-weight: bold;text-align: center;line-height: 48px;}
        table {border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0;width: 820px;}
        table, th, td {border: 1px solid #3a6fb7;background-color: #caebfc;margin: 10px auto;}
        th, td {padding: 5px;vertical-align: middle;}
        th {text-align: right;background-color: #3a6fb7;color: #fefedc;}
        thead th {background-color: #ff3f7b;font-size: 18px;font-weight: bold;color: #fefedc;text-align: center;}
        .center {text-align: center;}
        .red {color: #ff3f7b;}
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>My Codeigniter Framework:</h1>
<table>
    <thead>
    <tr>
        <th>Environment</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr>
        <td>
            <?php echo $environment; ?>
        </td>
    </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>
<table>
    <thead>
    <tr>
        <th colspan="3">Loader settings</th>
    </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
    <tr>
        <th class="center">Loaded classes:</th>
        <th class="center">Loaded helpers:</th>
        <th class="center">Loaded models:</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>
            <ul>
                <?php
                foreach ($loaded_classes as $class) {
                    echo '<li>' . $class . '</li>';
                }
                ?>
            </ul>
        </td>
        <td>
            <ul>
                <?php
                foreach ($loaded_helpers as $helper) {
                    echo '<li>' . $helper . '</li>';
                }
                ?>
            </ul>
        </td>
        <td>
            <ul>
                <?php
                foreach ($loaded_models as $model) {
                    echo '<li>' . $model . '</li>';
                }
                ?>
            </ul>
        </td>
    </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>
<div style="clear:both; width: 820px; margin:auto;">
<div style="float: left;">
    <table style="width: 400px;">
        <thead>
        <tr>
            <th colspan="2">Configuration:</th>
        </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th>Base URL:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['base_url']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Index page:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['index_page']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Language:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['language']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Charset:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['charset']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Enable Hooks:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['enable_hooks']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Subclass prefix:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['subclass_prefix']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Composer autoload:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['composer_autoload']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Permited URI chars:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['permitted_uri_chars']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Allow GET array:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['allow_get_array']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Enable query strings:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['enable_query_strings']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Controller trigger:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['controller_trigger']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Function trigger:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['function_trigger']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Directory trigger:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['directory_trigger']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Log threshold:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['log_threshold']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Log path:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['log_path']) ? $config['log_path'] : 'DEFAULT'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Log file extension:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['log_file_extension']) ? $config['log_file_extension'] : 'DEFAULT'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Log file permissions:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['log_file_permissions']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Log date format:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['log_date_format']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Error views path:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['error_views_path']) ? $config['error_views_path'] : 'DEFAULT'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Cache path:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['error_views_path']) ? $config['cache_path'] : 'DEFAULT'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Standardize new lines:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['standardize_newlines']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Compress output:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['compress_output']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Time reference:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['time_reference']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Rewrite short tags:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['rewrite_short_tags'] ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Reverse Proxy IPs:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['proxy_ips']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
    
</div>
<div style="float: right; width: 400px;">
    <table style="width: 100%;">
        <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Writable directories</th>
        </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
        <?php
        echo ($writable_cache) ? '<tr><td>The cache directory is writable</td></tr>' : '<tr><td><span class="red">The cache directory is not writable</span></td></tr>';
        echo ($writable_logs) ? '<tr><td>The logs directory is writable</td></tr>' : '<tr><td><span class="red">The logs directory is not writable</span></td></tr>';
        echo '<tr><td>'.$writable_uploads.'</td></tr>';
        ?>
        </tbody>
    </table>
    <table style="width: 100%;">
        <thead>
        <tr>
            <th colspan="2">XSS:</th>
        </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th>Global XSS filter:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['global_xss_filtering']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
    <table style="width: 100%;">
        <thead>
        <tr>
            <th colspan="2">CSRF protection</th>
        </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th>CSRF protection:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['csrf_protection']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>CSRF token name:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['csrf_token_name']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>CSRF cookie name:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['csrf_cookie_name']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>CSRF expire:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['csrf_expire']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>CSRF regenerate:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['csrf_regenerate']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>CSRF exclude URIs:</th>
            <td>
                <?php
                if (sizeof($config['csrf_exclude_uris']) > 0) {
                    foreach ($config['csrf_exclude_uris'] as $excluded) {
                        echo $excluded;
                    }
                }
                ?>
            </td>
        </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
    <table style="width: 100%;">
        <thead>
        <tr>
            <th colspan="2">Sessions and cookies</th>
        </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
        <tr>
            <th>Encryption key:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['encryption_key']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Session driver:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['sess_driver']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Session cookie name:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['sess_cookie_name']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Session expiration:</th>
            <td><?php echo ($config['sess_expiration']==0) ? 'Expire on close' : $config['sess_expiration']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Session encrypt cookie:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['sess_encrypt_cookie']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Match IP for sessions:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['sess_match_ip']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Session time to update:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['sess_time_to_update']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Cookie prefix:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['cookie_prefix']) ? $config['cookie_prefix'] : 'DEFAULT'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Cookie domain:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['cookie_domain']) ? $config['cookie_prefix'] : 'DEFAULT'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Cookie path:</th>
            <td><?php echo $config['cookie_path']; ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Cookie secure:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['cookie_secure']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <th>Cookie HTTP only:</th>
            <td><?php echo(($config['cookie_httponly']) ? 'TRUE' : '<span class="red">FALSE</span>'); ?></td>
        </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
</div>
<div style="clear:both;">
    <table>
        <thead>
        <tr>
            <th colspan="2">Database:<br/><?php echo $loaded_database; ?></th>
        </tr>
        </thead>
        <?php
        if (!empty($db_settings)) {
            ?>
            <tbody>
            <tr>
                <th>DSN:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['dsn']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Hostname:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['hostname']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Port:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['port']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Username:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['username']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Password:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['password']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Database:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['database']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>DB Driver:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['driver']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>DB Prefix:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['dbprefix']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>P Connect:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['pconnect']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>DB Debug:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['db_debug']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Cache On:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['cache_on']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Cache Dir:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['cachedir']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Char Set:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['char_set']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>DB Collation:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['dbcollat']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Swap pre:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['swap_pre']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Autoinit:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['autoinit']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Encrypt:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['encrypt']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Compress:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['compress']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Stricton:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['stricton']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Failover:</th>
                <td>
                    <?php
                    foreach ($db_settings['failover'] as $fail) {
                        echo $fail . '<br />';
                    }
                    ?>
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <th>Save queries:</th>
                <td><?php echo $db_settings['save_queries']; ?></td>
            </tr>
            </tbody>
        <?php
        }
        ?>
    </table>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

If everything went ok, we should call our controller from the browser. So go to http://localhost/verify and you should see something as below:

If you don’t see that, maybe something went wrong, so I’ve made a zip archive with the files for you to just copy/paste them. If it still doesn’t work, please write a comment and we will see where we both did something wrong.