DSO - PHP Handler for CWP
Run as an Apache module, DSO also referred to as mod_php, is one of the oldest PHP handlers and its major benefits are speed and the ability to use opcode caching.
Enabling this handler you will NOT be able to use PHP Selector.
By unselecting this module you will enable back suphp as cwp default handler.
This handler is recommended only for sites with a small number of sites because it is not secure as suphp.
Please note that DSO handler also requires that all files in the users home folder have permissions 777 or to be owned by user nobody.
To enable DSO handler go to CWP.admin "PHP Version Switcher" and select it from the list.
For uninstall simply do the same and unselect it from the list or run this command:
sh /scripts/dso_handler_remove
More detailed info about DSO handler
Using the DSO PHP handler is the fastest way to serve PHP requests. The DSO handler is an older PHP handler that runs PHP as an Apache module. All PHP scripts are executed as the Apache user "nobody", which allows for faster execution, but can be more of a headache configuring permissions for.
The main benefit of using the DSO handler is that it doesn't have much overhead, so it's fast out of the box. You can also use PHP opcode caching along with DSO to speed up your PHP requests even further. Additionally, you can set PHP directives directly via .htaccess files to control certain functionality of PHP.
The main disadvantage of using the DSO handler is that all PHP scripts will need to be owned and executed by Apache's "nobody" user. This means that PHP executions can't easily be tracked on a per-user basis since they're all run from the one web server user. Also when you use a CMS (Content Management System) such as WordPress or Joomla that requires the ability of these applications to write or modify files, the proper permissions must be set beforehand to allow this to happen. Each time a new file is created by a PHP script, it will be owned by the "nobody" user and can lead to further permission issues.
Another major drawback of the DSO handler is security. Because all of your users on the server are having their PHP scripts executed by the same "nobody" user, if one of your sites is exploited due to a flaw in one of your PHP scripts, the attacker could potentially look at or modify files outside of that user's directory that had the PHP script that was exploitable. So when using the DSO handler it's always very important to keep all of your PHP software up to date with any security patches so they are not exploited.
You might choose DSO as your PHP handler if you only have one user and your primary concern is speed and performance.