Php and MYSQL config security

[kaliok]

I was hoping someone could advise me on how to protect my config.inc file.

 

I have a config file with username, password, etc info in it, that I have placed outside of the web directory. I am using a shared hosting package. I have read that because this is on a shared host that there are potential security risks. From what  I have read the way to stop this from being a potential security risk is to use:

 

SetEnv DB_USER "myuser"

SetEnv DB_PASS "mypass"

 

But in order to do this I would need to put an include to the file containing the above data in httpd.conf. The host I am using does not allow access to the httpd.conf.

 

I thought about putting these in the htaccess file but it appears that this still has a potential to be unsafe.

 

Is there another way to protect the config information from prying eyes or to set the Environmental variables and access them in a different place.