For the majority of users that use PHP: A lot of hosts now allow editing of php.ini which isn't accessible to the web (or else it's time to switch hosts). You

For the majority of users that use PHP: A lot of hosts now allow editing of php.ini which isn't accessible to the web (or else it's time to switch hosts). You can store the login credentials there : http://www.php.net/manual/en/pdo.construct.php http://www.php.net/manual/en/pdo.construct.php This is another reason why you should move away from mysql(i) to PDO. Or if that doesn't work, try storing in the .htaccess or Apache conf environment variables : http://stackoverflow.com/a/2583857 http://stackoverflow.com/a/2583857