PHP: shell_exec is neither Defined nor disabled - php

Question

Well, I know there are already lots of related questions but non of them address my issue.
In my case, I want to use the shell_exec function but, I see that the shell_exec function is not defined and not even mentioned in the disable_functions list in php.ini.
here is the php.ini snippet
; This directive allows you to disable certain functions for security reasons.
; It receives a comma-delimited list of function names.
; http://php.net/disable-functions
disable_functions =
; This directive allows you to disable certain classes for security reasons.
; It receives a comma-delimited list of class names.
; http://php.net/disable-classes
disable_classes =
and here is how I'm using the function
if(!function_exists('shell_exec')) {
die("shell_exec is not found");
}
NOTE: I'm using Linux version CentOS release 6.9 (Final) and php -v outputs as follow
ea-php-cli Copyright 2017 cPanel, Inc.
PHP 7.0.28 (cli) (built: Mar 6 2018 09:27:52) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
with Zend OPcache v7.0.28, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies
Your help is highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Ok, I was using PHP-FPM that added the following line to the configuration of each domain at /opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/etc/php-fpm.d/
php_admin_value[disable_functions] = exec,passthru,shell_exec,system
So, this is what I did to make the shell_exec function available to use
mkdir /var/cpanel/ApachePHPFPM
echo "php_admin_value_disable_functions : exec,passthru,system">/var/cpanel/ApachePHPFPM/system_pool_defaults.yaml
/scripts/php_fpm_config --rebuild
and at the end restarted the PHP-FPM from WHM, and that's it.