I have a shared webhosting account through a hosting provider. PHP is installed on the shared web server so I have no problem creating PHP pages. However since this is a shared server (running Linux) I can't install any 3rd party software. In addition I have an in-house server running FileMaker Server. With this setup will I be able to utilize PHP custom web publishing?

What's unclear to me is that the manual states that the "Filemaker Web Server Module" must be installed on the web server. What exactly is the Web Server Module. Is that nothing more than a set of PHP files, in which case I assume this would work. Or am I missing something?

The web server module is more than just a couple of PHP files, it's a filter on IIS and a module on Apache that works closely with the web server so that the web server knows what traffic to hand off to the web publishing engine. The web publishing engine then acts as a "filemaker user" and communicates with filemaker server.

So if you can't install anything on the web server you're out of luck.

The PHP API is merely a series of PHP objects that facilitate the interaction with FMS' XML feed via cURL. So yes you can, but with a few caveats.

The PHP installation on your Linux server needs to have the cURL library enabled. You'll also need to enable the webserver on your in-house server, and set up FMS to host the XML feed.

Then place the Filemaker PHP API library on your Linux server, point it to the in-house server, and you're good to go.