I did some searching, found a lot of people suggesting adding little snippets to the php.ini file and the .htaccess file.  I tried all of those and nothing worked.  Later, I was asking around the #zftalk IRC channel and ran into someone that knew exactly how to fix the issue.  So, I wanted to post it for anyone out there hoping to find the solution to this frustrating problem.

Here’s what I was doing:

1. Setup a subdomain through Plesk
2. Logged in as root and created the needed directory structure, installed Zend library here:  /var/www/vhosts/mydomain.com/subdomains/phpbook/library/Zend
3. Created my bootstrap file:  /httpdocs/index.php, and the IndexController.php, and the view.

Here’s what you’ve got to do to fix it:

First, create a new file called vhost.conf here:  /var/www/vhosts/YOURDOMAIN.COM/subdomains/YOURSUBDOMAIN/conf/.  When you’ve done that, put in this code, modify it to be what you need, and save it:

<Directory /var/www/vhosts/YOURDOMAIN.COM/subdomains/YOUSUBDOMAIN/httpdocs>
<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
php_admin_value open_basedir none
</IfModule>
<IfModule mod_php5.c>
php_admin_value open_basedir none
</IfModule>
</Directory>


Now, in order for that to take effect, you’ve got to reconfigure the Plesk vhost.  Open up your terminal, login as root, and enter these commands (modifying it to match what you need):

/usr/local/psa/admin/bin/websrvmng --reconfigure-vhost --vhost-name=YOURDOMAIN.COM

apachectl stop

apachectl start

And that should do it!  I spent an entire Saturday trying to fix this issue.  Hopefully this saves you some time.  (The vhost.conf code – thanks to Daniel and this post)

Keep in mind though, that turning off the open_basedir restrictions for your site does weaken the security slightly, as open_basedir limits the files that can be opened by PHP. If you don’t want to completey remove the open_basedir restrictions, you can re-author the vhost.conf code to open restrictions just to specific directories.