Question

Hey, I’m trying to use PHP to execute a shell command which will run remotely run a server on my box. Here is my PHP Code:

if ($key == "test") { echo "<font color='green'>Key is valid. Server satrted.</font>";
   $start = system('cd /root/st/; ls;');
}

The problem is, the ls command runs from the same directory as the web server, which returns all of the files from /var/www/html instead of /root/st/. I have also tried the chdir command to no avail. Anyone know how you would get the directory to change so that the command could be run from a specified directory? Thanks.

Answer 1

Does the user that PHP is running as (eg, the user invoking the CLI script) have permission to read the directory? If you’re going into /root/ but aren’t root, you’d need to either add cd to sudoers for the current user, or choose another directory.

Edit: note that adding cd to sudoers is not even remotely okay for anything other than a local, you-only script. 🙂