All operations are performed in the server console through the command line interface. Determine the bit depth of the OS using the uname -a command:
Linux koolex.ru 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.51-1 x86_64 GNU/Linux
And the PHP version with php -v:
PHP 5.5.17-1~dotdeb.1 (cli) (built: Sep 19 2014 01:56:56)
Further instructions are given on the example of Linux Debian x86_64 OS.
We go to the URL https://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php and download from there an archive with binary loader libraries for Linux OS of the required bitness.
Unpack it to the /usr/lib/php5/ioncube/ directory.
Create a configuration file /etc/php5/mods-available/ioncube.ini with content similar to the following, adjusting the name of the libraries depending on the version of PHP installed:
zend_extension = /usr/lib/php5/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.5.so
zend_extension_ts = /usr/lib/php5/ioncube/ioncube_loader_lin_5.5_ts.so
Create three symbolic links:
ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/ioncube.ini /etc/php5/apache2/conf.d/01-ioncube.ini
ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/ioncube.ini /etc/php5/cgi/conf.d/01-ioncube.ini
ln -s /etc/php5/mods-available/ioncube.ini /etc/php5/cli/conf.d/01-ioncube.ini
Using the php -v command, we make sure that ionCube loads without problems:
PHP 5.5.17-1~dotdeb.1 (cli) (built: Sep 19 2014 01:56:56) Copyright © 1997-2014 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.5.0, Copyright © 1998-2014 Zend Technologies with the ionCube PHP Loader v4.7.0, Copyright © 2002-2014, by ionCube Ltd.
The final step is to restart the HTTP Apache server with the service apache2 restart command.