How to use Xdebug to debug WHMCS modules

[Vasily]

Hello,
I glad to share my way to debug code for WHMCS modules

WHMCS uses IonCube Loader, so there is a lot of difficulties to use Xdebug and IonCube Loader together.

The basic idea is to run the debug connection on demand in order to skip the encoded code.

Install Xdebug

yum -y install gcc gcc-c++ autoconf automake make php56-devel php56-pear
pecl install Xdebug-2.5.5

 

Configure Xdebug

cat > /etc/php.d/xdebug.ini <<FILE
;[xdebug]
zend_extension="/usr/lib64/php/modules/xdebug.so"
xdebug.remote_enable=1
xdebug.remote_autostart=0
xdebug.idekey=PHPSTORM
xdebug.remote_handler="dbgp"
xdebug.remote_mode="req"
xdebug.remote_connect_back=1
xdebug.remote_port=9000
FILE

Restart your httpd server and make sure Xdebug is loaded after IonCube

[root@whmcs ~]# php -v
PHP 5.6.40 (cli) (built: Jan 12 2019 13:11:15)
Copyright (c) 1997-2016 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.6.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2016 Zend Technologies
    with the ionCube PHP Loader (enabled) + Intrusion Protection from ioncube24.com (unconfigured) v10.3.2, Copyright (c) 2002-2018, by ionCube Ltd.
    with Xdebug v2.5.5, Copyright (c) 2002-2017, by Derick Rethans
[root@whmcs~]#

Configure the server in PHPStorm

Start the debug session 

Start listening for PHP Debug Connections

Add the following code to your file/class/method to interrupt executing and start the debug session 

ini_set('xdebug.remote_mode', 'jit');
try {throw new \Exception();} catch (\Exception $e) {
    $breakpoint = 1;
}

Edited July 9, 2019 by WHMCS ChrisD
Added in a code to code box