I've got a few problems with Mandrake Linux 9.1, especially with the Apache server and its settings.

I wrote a small c-programm that de- or encodes a string I'll give him as argument. Works fine and does what I want.

I want to use the output of that programm in one of my php-scripts. I want to use it with the socalled Backtick-operator (I could use proc_open() or popen() instead, but I get no error-message and no output of my program)
Code:
<?php
$output = `./encode myparameter`;
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
?>
but it doesn't do what I want. It says:
Code:
Warning: shell_exec() [function.shell-exec]:
Cannot execute using backquotes in Safe Mode in /var/www/html/index.php on line 2
The PHP-docu says that I can change that SAFE_MODE or SAFE_MODE_EXEC_DIR variables in php.ini or httpd.conf.

So, where does Mandrake hide the php.ini-config-file or what do I need to set in the httpd.conf?