WP-DBManager Plugin Can't Find Mysql Path

Question

I support a WordPress 3.4.2 site, lifering.org, running on a GoDaddy Virtual Server. Recently I chose to upgrade the underlying O/S from CentOS 5 to CentOS 6. The rebuild was entirely automated and I don't know what it involved. I restored my site from backup, and since then the plugin WP-DBManager no longer backs up our MySQL database because it says it can't find the mysql path. The mysql path is /usr/bin/mysql, same as it always was, but for some reason the PHP utility that finds it is failing. I posted a question in the Wordpress support forum for the plugin several weeks ago and have no reply; the original supporter has a blog post that says, basically, I have a real job now, goodbye.

After much research I think I may have a problem with PHP safe mode, but I don't know enough about it to evaluate. My PHP version is 5.3.3-14.el6_3. My php.ini contains these entries, in this order but not all together:

safe_mode_allowed_env_vars = PHP_
safe_mode_protected_env_vars = LD_LIBRARY_PATH
safe_mode_exec_dir = 
safe_mode_include_dir = 
safe_mode = off
safe_mode_gid = off

These must have been set during the rebuild. Reading the PHP manual, I think if I set safe_mode_gid = on it may solve my problem, but: if safe_mode = off why do I have a problem at all? I have no way of knowing what the compilation switches were. Can anyone suggest anything, including an alternative plugin? As far as I can tell there is NO other plugin that does what this does.

Answer 1

I solved this with help from the main StackOverflow site. One of the commenters suggested that the open_basedir directive might be set in php.ini - and that was the issue. Here is the open_basedir setting:

open_basedir = "/var/www/vhosts/lifering.org/:/tmp/"

I created a hard link mysql (could have been a symlink) to /usr/bin/mysql in the /tmp directory and then changed the MySQL path statement in WP-DBManager to read /tmp/mysql. The error message cleared immediately.