Question

I need to start php process from shell on remove server with some arguments, so i thought that it should be a nice idea to make REST API, that executes some function when user performs GET request.

I wrote a simple bash script for testing and figured out that command-line argument is not being specified, when calling this script from website:

shell_exec('/var/www/test.sh 123')

Bash script source:

#!/bin/sh
echo $1;

When calling this bash script from root (or other existing user) it correctly shows argument it has received. When i call this script from website (that is running under user www-data under apache2), it returns nothing:

Also, if i execute this bash script in my console under www-data user, it also returns nothing:

su -c '/var/www/test.sh 123' www-data

Also i’ve tried to start process from different user from php (is supposed that this will not work for security reasons, but just in case):

$result = system("su -c '/var/www/test.sh 123' sexyuser", $data);
// var_dump($result): string(0) ""
// var_dump($data): int(1)

So, what privileges should i give to www-data user to run process under php?

Answer 1

You should let php run the script and handle the results

check php.net on exec for example http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

//called by example.com/myshell.php?day=today&k=y&whatever=youwant
$arguments = implode(" ", $_GET);
$lastline_of_exec_result = exec ( "/your/command.sh ".$arguments); //sh called with today y youwant
echo $lastline_of_exec;

Where $arguments are the stringified list of ALL information your script got from GET arguments

if you want a ore precise in and output, try this:

//called by example.com/myshell.php?day=today&k=y&whatever=youwant
$argument = $_GET['whatever'];
$output = array();
$last_line = exec("your/command.sh ".$argument, &$output); //sh called with youwant
foreach($output as $line)
    echo $line."<br/>".PHP_EOL;

or of course (with shell_exec)

$argument = $_GET['whatever'];
$output = shell_exec("your/command.sh ".$argument);
echo "<pre>".$output."</pre>";

make sure (shell_)exec is not listed under disable_functions in your php.ini