I need to run PHP scripts on server without having to update files it stores - perform testing on real server before deployment. Server has access to database which is inaccessible from outside. For this reason I can't run my scripts locally, I need to run them within server's environment, but I don't want to update files stored on server. Is there any way to do so? Is there a tool for remote PHP debugging?
I have found a solution - XDebug for PHP. However as was mentioned in comments, testing against copy of DB and using virtualization is a more common approach, which I personally will probably stick to. For those who are still determined to go the "hard" way, here is a link to HOWTO on XDebug installation for PHP on Ubuntu - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=525257.