Drupal and safe mode

Drupal 6.x with small modification can also be used on servers with Safe Mode ON (safe_mode=1). Standard distribution of Drupal doesn't support Safe Mode out of the box. Joomla has support already build-in. Safe Mode ON can be bypassed with FTP directory functions.

Add following function to includes/file.inc:

function mkdir_ftp($directory) {
  $directory = "your_drupal_ftp_base_folder/" . $directory;
  $ftpConn = ftp_connect("ftp.your.domain");
  if(false == ftp_login($ftpConn, "your_login", "your_password")) {
    watchdog('file system',
        'The directory cannot be created, ftp_login() failed.',
        array(), WATCHDOG_ERROR);
    return FALSE;
  }
  if(false == ftp_mkdir($ftpConn, $directory)) {
    watchdog('file system',
        'The directory %directory cannot be created, ftp_mkdir() failed.',
        array('%directory' => $directory), WATCHDOG_ERROR);
    return FALSE;
  }
  if(false == ftp_chmod($ftpConn, 0777, $directory)) {
    watchdog('file system',
        'The directory %directory cannot be created, ftp_chmod() failed.',
        array('%directory' => $directory), WATCHDOG_ERROR);
    return FALSE;
  }
  ftp_close($ftpConn);
  
  return TRUE;
}

and call it instead of PHP mkdir() in the same file, in function file_check_directory():

function file_check_directory(&$directory, $mode = 0, $form_item = NULL) {
  $directory = rtrim($directory, '/\\');

  // Check if directory exists.
  if (!is_dir($directory)) {
    if (($mode & FILE_CREATE_DIRECTORY) && @mkdir_ftp($directory)) {
      drupal_set_message(t('The directory %directory has been created.', array('%directory' => $directory)));
      @chmod($directory, 0775); // Necessary for non-webserver users.
    }
...