##Have you prepared a proper chroot for PHP to chroot into?

Simply setting an arbitrary directory is not enough - you actually need to build the chroot and ensure it includes all necessary libraries, devices and binaries.

Otherwise, basic things like DNS resolution will fail to work and you'll get random errors, hangs or app segfaults. It sounds like you are mistaking the simplicity of open_basedir with that of a chroot.

As a start, this script, once customized, should give you a basis for a chroot.

http://www.fuschlberger.net/programs/ssh-scp-sftp-chroot-jail/make_chroot_jail.sh

##Dotdeb already includes pre-compiled binaries for PHP

The Dotdeb repo keeps up-to-date pre-compiled builds of the latest versions of PHP - and would be considerably easier and quicker to implement.

http://www.dotdeb.org/

Have you prepared a proper chroot for PHP to chroot into?

Simply setting an arbitrary directory is not enough - you actually need to build the chroot and ensure it includes all necessary libraries, devices and binaries.

Otherwise, basic things like DNS resolution will fail to work and you'll get random errors, hangs or app segfaults. It sounds like you are mistaking the simplicity of open_basedir with that of a chroot.

As a start, this script, once customized, should give you a basis for a chroot.

http://www.fuschlberger.net/programs/ssh-scp-sftp-chroot-jail/make_chroot_jail.sh

Dotdeb already includes pre-compiled binaries for PHP

The Dotdeb repo keeps up-to-date pre-compiled builds of the latest versions of PHP - and would be considerably easier and quicker to implement.

http://www.dotdeb.org/