Server experts : Safe Mode On / Off ?
 

I'm doing some PHP programming at the moment where I need to use ImageMagick .. and to use that via system() instead of the API which are made for it, SAFE MODE on the server needs to be turned off..

Whats the risks in that? The server runs important stuff

certified bump

by Juicy "bump" LInks

I hope that was a free bump, just used all my savings on fireworks and stupid hats

safemode is important for shared servers, having safemode on add many restrictions such as preventing you from executing applications outside the location defined in your safe_mode_exec_dir php parameter, creating files in directories having a different uid than the owner of the script etc..
The main risk when safemode is off is having your site deleted if the webmaster of a co-hosted site executes the wrong exec() command :glugglug
You should try putting the imagemagick dir in your safe_mode_exec_dir parameter if you don't want to turn off safe mode