Server administrators, especially those operating within a shared environment for hosting communities, have been plagued with the arduous task of deciding what to do with PHP's safe_mode functionality. Traditionally, there are only four options for these administrators to choose from:
a) turn off safe_mode completely which leads to serious security implications
b) run every account with their own unique Apache/PHP daemon which is usually unrealistic when considering server loads and stability
c) require every site owner to run their PHP scripts as a CGI process which again leads to server load and stability issues
d) enable PHP's safe_mode which, though secure, restricts the site owner's choices as to which scripts will and will not operate on the server.
