Currently, we allow to put a bootstrap.php file into the root directory of Matomo and then load it as first thing. This allows for example the configuration of a few things that are needed to be set BEFORE we load any config. Such as

• PIWIK_USER_PATH constant
• Usage of config cache
• PIWIK_ENABLE_ERROR_HANDLER
• PIWIK_PRINT_ERROR_BACKTRACE
• $GLOBALS['PIWIK_TRACKER_DEBUG']
• etc.

This works nicely. The problem is when you would like to use Matomo for example as a submodule, or install it through composer, etc... then having a file in Matomo directory doesn't do the trick and you need to have the bootstrap file outside the Matomo directory.

That's why I'm now looking for ../matomo_bootstrap.php. It's not ideal cause what if the next person wants to have it at ../../../matomo_bootstrap.php etc. Ideally there be an environment variable. However, the project I'm working on I cannot make use of environment variables.

I will try to workaround it by putting all files into a new endpoint like my_index.php which then includes matomo_bootstrap.php and matomo/index.php for example but likely this won't work since Matomo will then not know the correct paths anymore...

Also we cannot look for ../bootstrap.php btw since someone might actually use that file for a completely different project and we don't want to load any file by accident that does not belong to Matomo.

Update: I couldn't find a workaround for this because otherwise Matomo gets completely confused with paths etc when embedding Matomo eg in a file index.php by doing like matomo/index.php and as I can't use environment variables or anything else will need this solution. Also I noticed that with such a solution we risk that Matomo thinks it is uninstalled and this be a security issue. An attacker could install Matomo using the attacker's DB credentials and this way get super user access which allows to install plugins etc.