safe_mode won't take

I've installed php4/apache1.3.12 under solaris. Thought I turned on safe_mode and exec_dir during the config (see flags below), but when I run php, it still allows me to do non-safe-mode things like run any system command with system(). Also, php_info() shows php_safe_mode as "Off" for both local and master values (I'm doing this without a php.ini file), and php_exec_dir as "no value" for both local and master values. If I do put a php.ini file out there and explicitly set safe_mode to "On", it does at least stop me from running the system binaries. However, I'd sure like to believe in and trust the compiled-in configs. Anyone know what might be wrong? My understanding is that --enable-safe-mode=yes during the configure step should mean that the default behavior barring any php.ini files (or apache configs) would be that safe_mode was on. By the way, php_info does correctly show the "configure command". It's just the php core configuration table (not to mention the actual behavior of php :-) that isn't what I expect. Here's my config flag set: --with-apache=../apache_1.3.12 --prefix=/web/php-4.0b4pl1 --with-config-file-path=/web/php --with-gd=no --enable-sysvshm=yes --enable-sysvsem=yes --enable-safe-mode=yes --with-exec-dir=/web/php/safe-bin --enable-track-vars=yes --enable-trans-sid=yes --enable-force-cgi-redirect=yes --enable-memory-limit=yes --with-xml --enable-short-tags=no Thanks. -glenn little@cs.ucsd.edu