Issues With PHP exec & shell_exec - Shell Script Execution - php

I've been unable to run php scripts that I need to use to start and stop webcam services that run on the local machine with the scripts. I can find nothing in the logs to indicate why the script doesn't' work.
I confess to being severely handicapped regarding PHP, especially server-side scripting.
The environment is Debian Jesse running Nginx with all required SSH and PHP modules installed
I have added www-data to the sudoers file with:
www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /var/www/html/start_webcam.sh
Enabled the $PATH environment for www-data at:
/etc/php5/fpm/pool.d/www.conf
The shell script resides in the .../html directory and runs from the terminal with no issues.
This is the code for both the php and shell scripts:
start_webcam.php:
<?php
echo exec('sudo bash /var/www/html/aspirebox/start_webcam.sh 2>&1, $output');
print_r($output);
?>
The $output and print_r stuff is there because it was the last thing I tried based on a post I found out here somewhere.
start_webcam.sh
#!/bin/bash
service motion start
Thanks in advance to anyone out here that has a clue. After 2 days of wrestling with this, I am sure that I do not.

according to Passing Variables to shell_exec()? you should change your code like this:
<?php
$output = exec('/var/www/html/aspirebox/start_webcam.sh 2>&1 ');
print_r($output);
?>
and let your bash script execute as all (no need to sudo bash):
chmod a+x /var/www/html/aspirebox/start_webcam.sh

Thank you very much - that worked.
I worked through getting the path straight for the directory the shell script runs in, and the correct path to run "service".
All I have now is to figure out why I'm getting "Failed to start motion.service: Access denied"
I've given www-data permission to run the script without a password on sudoers, have to keep digging.
Thanks again!

Related

PHP exec don't run program

I want to start program when I enter my webpage, and problem is in permissions(??) because when I try
echo exec('whoami');
I've got valid response (www-data) but when i try code like it:
echo exec('/var/www/./sitesend');
and
echo passthru(/var/www/./sitesend');
I got no response. I tried to
chown www-data /var/www/sitesend
chmod 755 /var/www/sitesend
My C++ app runs correctly, and its sending by NRF infromations to turn lights.
But not work, when enter page app won't run and I don't get any reps in echo.
I don't have a conclusive answer, but you can try a number of things:
Try the follow command to see if www-data may run the command.
sudo -u www-data /var/www/sitesend
Try running a PHP script with the passthru command from the commandline.
See if you're running AppArmor for the Apache process. AppArmor will block execution for files not white listed.
ls /etc/apparmor.d

Can't open gnome-terminal with php

I actually try to laucnh a gnome-term with a php script, seems i have some problems with the users www-data;
my script make only a ls -l command in a directory (is just for a test) and i run it with a php page in my local-web site.
here the gnome-terminal command in my bash script (he run perfectly when i double-click on him) :
gnome-terminal --working-directory=/opt/cuckoo -x bash -c "ls -l"
and here is the call on the php-page :
system("/my/path/to/the/script/script.sh");
i have some echo in my script and i see them in the php page after i try to run the script with the php.page.
i think www-data don't have the right to do so i give the ownership of the script with the chown command, and at last a try the sudo visudo command and make the script execute like the user www-data is root (with NO PASSWD arg)
But i can't open the terminal and make a ls at last, i try with exec too, and show the result with $ouput butthe result is the same as well.
At last my question is : Php can really run a terminal or maybe a fool myself^^? Thanks for taking time to rescure me ;)
PHP can run everything, but depends who spawns it. Forget just running X apps from a web server - you'll need more than just executing them (permissions, DISPLAY and Xauth settings). Read more about the X clients and architecture.
Probably the right place to ask this is at SuperUser, since the problem is not in the coding itself.

Can't execute external program through system()?

I tried to compile my latex file in php script, but it can't call xelatex.
In php script:
system("/usr/bin/whoami");
system("/usr/bin/xelatex foo.tex 2>&1");
output:
myuser
sh: 1: /usr/bin/xelatex: not found
But in my terminal:
$ /usr/bin/whoami
=> myuser
$ /usr/bin/xelatex foo.tex
This is XeTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)
...(successful output)...
I run php as myuser, and pass system() absolute path. And I turn safe_mode off. Why can't I still execute external programs?
Finally I contacted my system administrator and found the problem. The machine is in a NFS, so the apache and login shell is on different machines. There is no xelatex on the machine where apache is running.
Check the permission of the directory from where you running you PHP code. check for myuser permissions
just for verification try it with root.
Hope this help
Are you sure it's not the file 'foo.tex' which it is unable to find? Try having the shell output to a file, e.g. system("/usr/bin/xelatex ./foo.tex > ./test.out"); and see what luck you get then.

How to execute a shell script in PHP?

I have a script in /var/www/myscript.sh which creates folders and runs the command svn update for my projects. I need to execute this script by calling it in a PHP file in the browser (i.e. Localhost/test.php). I tried using functions shell_exec() and exec() but those did not work. I ran my shell script in terminal with su www-data && ./myscript.sh and it worked. What else am I missing?
<?php
$output = shell_exec("./myscript.sh");
?>
Update 5/4/2011:
I added www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL to /etc/sudoers and it works, but this is very insecure. Is there another way to do this?
Several possibilities:
You have safe mode enabled. That way, only exec() is working, and then only on executables in safe_mode_exec_dir
exec and shell_exec are disabled in php.ini
The path to the executable is wrong. If the script is in the same directory as the php file, try exec(dirname(__FILE__) . '/myscript.sh');
You might have disabled the exec privileges, most of the LAMP packages have those disabled. Check your php.ini for this line:
disable_functions = exec
And remove the exec, shell_exec entries if there are there.
Good Luck!
Residuum did provide a correct answer to how you should get shell exec to find your script, but in regards to security, there are a couple of points.
I would imagine you don't want your shell script to be in your web root, as it would be visible to anyone with web access to your server.
I would recommend moving the shell script to outside of the webroot
<?php
$tempFolder = '/tmp';
$webRootFolder = '/var/www';
$scriptName = 'myscript.sh';
$moveCommand = "mv $webRootFolder/$scriptName $tempFolder/$scriptName";
$output = shell_exec($moveCommand);
?>
In regards to the:
i added www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL to /etc/sudoers works
You can modify this to only cover the specific commands in your script which require sudo. Otherwise, if none of the commands in your sh script require sudo to execute, you don't need to do this at all anyway.
Try running the script as the apache user (use the su command to switch to the apache user) and if you are not prompted for sudo or given permission denied, etc, it'll be fine.
ie:
sudo su apache (or www-data)
cd /var/www
sh ./myscript
Also... what brought me here was that I wanted to run a multi line shell script using commands that are dynamically generated. I wanted all of my commands to run in the same shell, which won't happen using multiple calls to shell_exec(). The answer to that one is to do it like Jenkins - create your dynamically generated multi line of commands, put it in a variable, save it to a file in a temp folder, execute that file (using shell_exec in() php as Jenkins is Java), then do whatever you want with the output, and delete the temp file
... voila
If you are having a small script that you need to run (I simply needed to copy a file), I found it much easier to call the commands on the PHP script by calling
exec("sudo cp /tmp/testfile1 /var/www/html/testfile2");
and enabling such transaction by editing (or rather adding) a permitting line to the sudoers by first calling sudo visudo and adding the following line to the very end of it
www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/bin/cp /tmp/testfile1 /var/www/html/testfile2
All I wanted to do was to copy a file and I have been having problems with doing so because of the root password problem, and as you mentioned I did NOT want to expose the system to have no password for all root transactions.

sudo in php exec()

I don't know what the deal is here…
So I want to run an applescript: sudo osascript myscript.scpt
This works fine in the terminal, but not when I execute it via PHP's exec(); nothing happens. The console says
no tty present and no askpass program specified ; TTY=unknown ; …
I did my research, and it seems I'm missing the password for the sudo command. I tried a couple different ways to get around this, including:
writing %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL in /etc/sudoers
and proc_open() instead of exec()
none of which seem to be working, consequently driving me CrAzY!
So basically, is there a clear-cut way to get PHP to execute a simple terminal command?
EDIT: to clarify, myscript.scpt is a simple appleScript that changes the onscreen UI (for a larger project). In theory, simply osascript myscript.scpt should be enough, however the sudo is for some reason necessary to invoke some response from the system. If the sudo could be somehow eliminated, I don't think I would be having this permissions problem.
It sounds like you need to set up passwordless sudo. Try:
%admin ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: osascript myscript.scpt
Also comment out the following line (in /etc/sudoers via visudo), if it is there:
Defaults requiretty
I think you can bring specific access to user and command with visudo something like this:
nobody ALL = NOPASSWD: /path/to/osascript myscript.scpt
and with php:
#exec("sudo /path/to/osascript myscript.scpt ");
supposing nobody user is running apache.
php: the bash console is created, and it executes 1st script, which call sudo to the second one, see below:
$dev = $_GET['device'];
$cmd = '/bin/bash /home/www/start.bash '.$dev;
echo $cmd;
shell_exec($cmd);
/home/www/start.bash
#!/bin/bash
/usr/bin/sudo /home/www/myMount.bash $1
myMount.bash:
#!/bin/bash
function error_exit
{
echo "Wrong parameter" 1>&2
exit 1
}
..........
oc, you want to run script from root level without root privileges, to do that create and modify the /etc/sudoers.d/mount file:
www-data ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD:/home/www/myMount.bash
dont forget to chmod:
sudo chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/mount
I recently published a project that allows PHP to obtain and interact with a real Bash shell. Get it here: https://github.com/merlinthemagic/MTS
The shell has a pty (pseudo terminal device, same as you would have in i.e. a ssh session), and you can get the shell as root if desired. Not sure you need root to execute your script, but given you mention sudo it is likely.
After downloading you would simply use the following code:
$shell = \MTS\Factories::getDevices()->getLocalHost()->getShell('bash', true);
$return1 = $shell->exeCmd('/path/to/osascript myscript.scpt');
Run sudo visudo command then set -%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) to %sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL it will work.
I had a similar situation trying to exec() a backend command and also getting no tty present and no askpass program specified in the web server error log. Original (bad) code:
$output = array();
$return_var = 0;
exec('sudo my_command', $output, $return_var);
A bash wrapper solved this issue, such as:
$output = array();
$return_var = 0;
exec('sudo bash -c "my_command"', $output, $return_var);
Not sure if this will work in every case. Also, be sure to apply the appropriate quoting/escaping rules on my_command portion.
The best secure method is to use the crontab. ie Save all your commands in a database say, mysql table and create a cronjob to read these mysql entreis and execute via exec() or shell_exec(). Please read this link for more detailed information.
killProcess.php
I think directly calling a sudo command might be difficult because you are setting up the whole server to work without a password.
Perhaps as an alternative you could setup a CRONjob as root and monitor a flag file. Once the flag file exists it will run the osascript myscript.scpt and then delete the flag file.
This way you will keep SUDO secure from a config point of view and the server safer. To run the script you just need to touch the flag file from PHP.
It would of course introduce a delay of however many minutes you running the CRON job. It would also mean that you would have to redirect the output to a file and have a async monitor of the output, but it will depend on your application if this is a problem or not.
But it is an alternative that might protect the server.

Categories