Question

I have a multithreaded cli downloader for ubuntu called Aria2c.

I’ve been trying to get a php script to run aria2c and download a file using shell_exec, but i can’t seem to get it to work. Ultimately I plan to have an input box on a page where I can enter a link and aria would download it.

Here’s the code I’ve come up with (for now im inputting the link manually):
<?php $dl = shell_exec('aria2c -d /home/user/ www.downloadlink.com'); ?>

Note that the aria2c command I specified works well in the shell; and the directory I’m attempting to download to is set to ‘777’.

I’m baffled as to why it’s not working, any ideas?

PS: I prefer to use aria rather than the alternatives because it is multithreaded and it supports cookies.

Answer 1

Check if PHP is running in safe_mode. shell_exec won’t work if safe_mode is on.

EDIT: aria2c was not referenced with a full path. Referencing it like this: shell_exec('/path/to/aria2c -d /home/user/ www.downloadlink.com') works.