PHP Exec() Is Not Executing the Command

php exec() is not executing the command

I already said that I was new to exec() function. After doing some more digging, I came upon 2>&1 which needs to be added at the end of command in exec().

Thanks @mattosmat for pointing it out in the comments too. I did not try this at once because you said it is a Linux command, I am on Windows.

So, what I have discovered, the command is actually executing in the back-end. That is why I could not see it actually running, which I was expecting to happen.

For all of you, who had similar problem, my advise is to use that command. It will point out all the errors and also tell you info/details about execution.

exec('some_command 2>&1', $output);
print_r($output);  // to see the response to your command

Thanks for all the help guys, I appreciate it ;)

PHP exec() command not working

Finaly found the solution!!

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If you encounter the same problem as i did, and you dont know how to fix this, follow this steps.

1. Login to the Remote of your server (if you have access to it)
2. Open the IIS manager
3. Select -> Application Pools node underneath the machine node (left panel)
4. Right click on the desired domainname -> Advanced settings
5. Scroll to Process Model -> Identity
6. Click on the 3 dots
7. Check the Custom Account radio button
8. Fill in an existing administration account which has access to the
   remote desktop and of course its password
9. Press OK
10. Now go to the .exe or whatever file you want to access throught the
    exec command and
11. Right click on the file and select properties
12. Go to the security tab
13. Select Edit
14. Now grand full rights to the account you selected before. If its
    not listed than add it manualy by clicking on Add

If you have done all of this, it now should work.

PHP exec() not working - permission error?

The major difference in such cases i find is the environment and the permissions. The error [4] => boost::filesystem::create_directory: Permission denied: "/.litecoin" suggests that your php page is looking for the folder litecoin in ~ or $HOME and it is not set. That's why it becomes /.litecoin

I created a simple index.php file with below code

<?php

$out = array();
exec("env", $out);

var_dump($out);

The output of same on my default php is

/home/vagrant/nginx/html/index.php:6:
array (size=9)
  0 => string 'APACHE_RUN_DIR=/var/run/apache2' (length=31)
  1 => string 'APACHE_PID_FILE=/var/run/apache2/apache2.pid' (length=44)
  2 => string 'PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin' (length=65)
  3 => string 'APACHE_LOCK_DIR=/var/lock/apache2' (length=33)
  4 => string 'LANG=C' (length=6)
  5 => string 'APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data' (length=24)
  6 => string 'APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data' (length=25)
  7 => string 'APACHE_LOG_DIR=/var/log/apache2' (length=31)
  8 => string 'PWD=/home/vagrant/nginx/html' (length=28)

As you can see there is $HOME and that could be one possible reason causing a issue

So you should make sure the correct environment is available to the executable that you are running. You can do that by doing

exec("HOME=/var/www/html X=Y A=B env", $out);

The output of the command shows it can see the updated variables

/home/vagrant/nginx/html/index.php:6:
array (size=12)
  0 => string 'HOME=/var/www/html' (length=18)
  1 => string 'APACHE_RUN_DIR=/var/run/apache2' (length=31)
  2 => string 'APACHE_PID_FILE=/var/run/apache2/apache2.pid' (length=44)
  3 => string 'A=B' (length=3)
  4 => string 'X=Y' (length=3)
  5 => string 'PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin' (length=65)
  6 => string 'APACHE_LOCK_DIR=/var/lock/apache2' (length=33)
  7 => string 'LANG=C' (length=6)
  8 => string 'APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data' (length=24)
  9 => string 'APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data' (length=25)
  10 => string 'APACHE_LOG_DIR=/var/log/apache2' (length=31)
  11 => string 'PWD=/home/vagrant/nginx/html' (length=28)

Figure out which environment variables you need and make sure they exists and try to set the paths so your executable used /var/www or /var/www/html whichever path it has access to and then executes the program

PHP not executing a shell exec command

Thanks to KIKO Software his link PHP quotes inside quotes. had the answer that I needed:

I had to escape the single quotes in the AWK

Working code:

<?php
$sinfo = shell_exec('ss -H -t -r state established | awk \'{$1=$2=""; print $0}\'');
echo "<pre>$sinfo</pre>";
?>

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