Ultimate Guide For Installing ionCube Loader on Debian 12

This tutorial intends to give you an Ultimate Guide For Installing and Enabling PHP ionCube Loader on Debian 12. The ionCube Loader is a great choice for those who want to encrypt their PHP codes. With this option, you can keep your data safe. Also, it will help the page speed.

You can follow this guide to install the ionCube loader step by step on Debian 12 Bookworm.

Ultimate Guide For Installing ionCube Loader on Debian 12

To install the ionCube loader and enable it for PHP, you must have access to your server as a root user and follow the steps below.

Step 1 – Installing Apache and PHP on Debian 12

You must have Apache as a web server and PHP installed on your server. First, run the system update with the command below:

apt update

Then, install Apache on your server with the following command:

apt install apache2 -y

Debian 12 ships with PHP 8.2. So you can easily use the command below to install it:

apt install php libapache2-mod-php

Verify your PHP installation by checking its version:

php --version

Output
PHP 8.2.7 (cli) (built: Jun  9 2023 19:37:27) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.2.7, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v8.2.7, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Step 2 – Download ionCube Loader on Debian 12

At this point, you need to visit the ionCube loader downloads page and get the Linux tar.gz package depending on your OS (32/64 bits) by using the following wget command:

wget https://downloads.ioncube.com/loader_downloads/ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz

When your download is completed, extract it by using the following command:

tar xzf ioncube_loaders_lin_x86-64.tar.gz

Then, use the following command to list the content of the ionCube directory on Debian 12:

ls ioncube

Output
ioncube_loader_lin_4.1.so     ioncube_loader_lin_7.0.so
ioncube_loader_lin_4.2.so     ioncube_loader_lin_7.0_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_4.3.so     ioncube_loader_lin_7.1.so
ioncube_loader_lin_4.3_ts.so  ioncube_loader_lin_7.1_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_4.4.so     ioncube_loader_lin_7.2.so
ioncube_loader_lin_4.4_ts.so  ioncube_loader_lin_7.2_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.0.so     ioncube_loader_lin_7.3.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.0_ts.so  ioncube_loader_lin_7.3_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.1.so     ioncube_loader_lin_7.4.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.1_ts.so  ioncube_loader_lin_7.4_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.2.so     ioncube_loader_lin_8.1.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.2_ts.so  ioncube_loader_lin_8.1_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.3.so     ioncube_loader_lin_8.2.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.3_ts.so  ioncube_loader_lin_8.2_ts.so
ioncube_loader_lin_5.4.so     LICENSE.txt
ioncube_loader_lin_5.4_ts.so  loader-wizard.php
ioncube_loader_lin_5.5.so     README.txt
ioncube_loader_lin_5.5_ts.so  USER-GUIDE.pdf
ioncube_loader_lin_5.6.so     USER-GUIDE.txt
ioncube_loader_lin_5.6_ts.so

Step 3 – Enable PHP ionCube Loader on Debian 12

First, you must find your PHP extension directory path by using the command below:

php -i | grep extension_dir

Output
extension_dir => /usr/lib/php/20220829 => /usr/lib/php/20220829

Then, from the list of your ionCube directory choose the one that matches your PHP version and copy it to the extension directory with the command below:

cp ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_8.2.so /usr/lib/php/20220829

Next, open your php.ini file and enable your ionCube loader by adding the following line to the file:

vi /etc/php/8.2/cli/php.ini

zend_extension = /usr/lib/php/20220829/ioncube_loader_lin_8.2.so

When you are done, save and close the file.

Now restart Apache to apply the changes:

systemctl restart apache2

Finally, you can verify that your ionCube loader is enabled or not by checking the PHP version:

php -v

If everything is fine, you should get the following output:

Output
PHP 8.2.7 (cli) (built: Jun  9 2023 19:37:27) (NTS)
Copyright (c) The PHP Group
Zend Engine v4.2.7, Copyright (c) Zend Technologies
    with the ionCube PHP Loader v13.0.2, Copyright (c) 2002-2023, by ionCube Ltd.
    with Zend OPcache v8.2.7, Copyright (c), by Zend Technologies

Also, you can use the following command:

php -m

Output
...
[Zend Modules]
Zend OPcache
the ionCube PHP Loader

The above output confirms that the PHP ionCube extension is loaded on your server.

Conclusion

At this point, you have learned an Ultimate Guide For Installing and Enabling PHP ionCube Loader on Debian 12. Hope you enjoy using it and keep your data safe.

You may be interested in these articles:

Install PHP with Apache and Nginx on Debian 12

Set up Nginx with Brotli Compression on Debian 12 Bookworm