Question

I’m attempting to query an Exchange server using a powershell script executed by PHP and it doesn’t seem to be working. The command I’m attempting to run is:

powershell "Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010";"Get-CASMailbox -Identity [e-mail] | fl ActiveSyncEnabled"

If I type that directly into the command prompt, it executes correctly and returns:

ActiveSyncEnabled : True

When I try it in PHP:

$output=shell_exec('powershell "Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010";"Get-CASMailbox -Identity [e-mail] | fl ActiveSyncEnabled"');

I get nothing. $output is set but blank. If I add “> output.txt” to the end, I get a blank text file. I’m able to run other, simpler powershell commands successfully via PHP, but not this one. The Apache service is running as the same user as when I successfully executed the script via the command prompt.

Any ideas?

I’m running:

• Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit
• Apache 2.2.22 32-bit
• PHP 5.2.17 VC6 32-bit
• Exchange Management Console 2010

Answer 1

You may try adding 2>&1 at the end of the command, e.g.:

$output=shell_exec('powershell "Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010";"Get-CASMailbox -Identity [e-mail] | fl ActiveSyncEnabled" 2>&1');

Sometimes, a line break at the beginning of the powershell output seems to prevent shell_exec printing anything else.