PHP website not running exec function when passing image as an argument - php

I'm having trouble running the "exec" function in my PHP website. I am able to run it several times with an executable that just takes in a variable argument and returns some test message. However, when I use an executable that does some image processing, where I want to pass an image from the website that a user uploads as an argument, it does not seem to be executing the executable at all. I even have some cout commands in the executable to ensure its running, but these are not being displayed on the website. So I think that for some reason the php cannot run the executable? I am able to run it fine from my desktop...
Here's an example of the code that isn't working on my PHP website:
$imgtest1="/uploaded_files/me.jpg";
$imgtest2="/uploaded_files/clusteroutput.jpg";
$nosuppix = 400;
$noweight = 100;
$executabletest = exec("ImgProc $imgtest1 $nosuppix $noweight $imgtest2");
echo $executabletest;
Is there a way to debug or get an error output from the exec function? Is there something I'm missing when passing an image to the executable? The executable uses several DLL files which are in the same folder as the executable. Do they need to be packaged together for some reason? I apologize, but I really don't know what's left to test...
***Edit: I'm now able to get it to run if I write out all the code in the escapeshellcmd itself... how come I'm not able to just pass the variables?
$cmdinput = escapeshellcmd('SuperpixelsFinal "D:/WebPages/TALIA ART/TALIA ART/uploaded_files/me.jpg" 400 100 "D:/WebPages/TALIA ART/TALIA ART/uploaded_files/clusteroutput.jpg"');

For anyone else having this issue, it is because I was using escapeshellcmd when I should have used escapeshellarg for each individual string and then run the exec with double quotes using only variables like so:
$executabletest = exec("SuperpixelsFinal $imgtest1 $nosuppix $noweight $imgtest2");

Related

Calling Perl script with PHP, passing variables and put result into a file

I am near losing my mind cause of a perl script I want to call via PHP.
I have a PHP Form where I put in a MySQL Query which gets stored in a file and choosing some variables.
If I call any SHELL command like "top" ... everything works fine, but as soon as I try to call my perl script with variables, there are no results at all.
The file where the results should get stored stays empty.
That's the calling part from the PHP File:
if (isset($_POST['submit'])) {
$file = 'query.sql';
$query = $_POST['query'];
file_put_contents($file, $query);
$command = "perl /home/www/host/html/cgi/remote-board-exec.pl -sqlfileexec query.sql > /home/www/host/html/cgi/passthrutest.txt";
exec($command, &$ausgabe, $return_var);
There is no error message and i already tried debug things, but nothing helped :(
Are you sure that perl is being executed? Perhaps you ought to replace the command with 'which perl' just to make sure, and to use the full path to Perl. Another idea is to make sure your:
perl script is executable (use chmod)
ensure it has '#!/usr/bin/perl' (or wherever your path to perl is)
change the command to "/home/www/host/cgi/remote-board-exec.pl..." without the perl command
dump the contents of your output array ($ausgabe) as if the command fails to execute you may find out what is happening.

How to pass variables between scripts running in parallel

I'm running IIS on a Windows Server w/PHP 5.3. I have two scripts; let's call them initiator.php and worker.php. A user calls initiator.php and in this script a variable is defined; let's call it $input. I would like to take this $input variable and pass it to worker.php like so:
$oShell = new COM('Wscript.Shell');
$oShell->Run("\"C:/Program Files (x86)/PHP/v5.3/php/worker.php -a $input",0,False);
In worker.php I have the following to pick up the $input variable passed from initiator.php.
$aCliOpts = getopt('a:');
$input_from_initiator = $aCliOpts['a'];
This works great. initiator.php's $input variable is successfully passed to worker.php which picks it up and initiator.php keeps chugging. However, worker.php then takes it's own $input_from_initiator variable, runs through some quick code of it's own and creates a third variable called $output_from_worker. It is this variable that I need initiator.php to read a little ways into it's processing. This is where I'm getting hung up.
I've tried passing the variable back to initiator.php from worker.php the same way it a variable as passed in the beginning and this did not work. I've also tried to use:
header('Location: initiator.php?var=value')
using HTTP GET params but to no avail.
My last resort is for worker.php to write this variable's value to disk then have initiator.php read from disk. I hate to do this due to the latent disk I/O. Speed is very important to this script.
Is there a way two PHP processes can pass variables between each other in memory?
Have a look at file_get_contents() http://php.net/file_get_contents, which you can pass a URL to. So you could use the Query String like:
$var = file_get_contents('http://site.tld/worker.php?input='.$input);
And in worker.php, simply echo your result.
It's a shame you're running on Windows, because the sys5 extension on *nix is marvelous!
You can always use files or a database etc for communication.
Thanks for the help although I ended up doing something a little different than my original question. I was trying to run different cURL requests. curl_multi_exec() ended up working great for me.

Passing Params from PHP to Powershell exec

I am attempting to write a PHP script that will allow for me to select a few files to download from a predetermined location. I'd like my script to pass an array to a Powershell script that id written earlier and have my Powershell script handle the downloading (basically the php file just needs to tell the powershell file what needs to be downloaded).
I've looked at a few options, and it seems that exec is the command I should use for this (as I do not care about command line output I shouldnt need shell_exec).
So far I've turned OFF safe mode to allow me to use this command. I should also note that the php file will be run from a server, however the powershell files are located on a local machine.
A snippet of the code so far to handle the param passing looks like this:
if(isset($_POST['formSubmit']))
{
$choosePlugin = $_POST['wpPlugin'];
$chooseTheme = $_POST['wpTheme'];
if(isset($_POST['wpTheme']))
{
echo("<p>You selected: $chooseTheme</p>\n");
exec('powershell.exe C:\Wordpress Setup\setupThemes.ps1 $chooseTheme');
}
else
{
echo("<p>You did not select a theme</p>\n");
}
I am a bit confused as to what I should put inside the exec. When I run the above code there are no errors however nothing happens. I am a bit new to this so I apologize if more information is required. Any help is appreciated thank you.
Try to do:
echo exec('powershell.exe C:\\Wordpress Setup\\setupThemes.ps1 $chooseTheme');
to see the results of powershell.exe (remember the double \), also make sure to put the absolute path to the exe file:
echo exec('c:\\PATH_TO_POWERSHELL.EXE\\powershell.exe C:\\Wordpress Setup\\setupThemes.ps1 $chooseTheme');
If you want to pass the contents of the variable you should use double quotes to actually expand it, I guess. Furthermore you should quote the script name because the path contains spaces:
exec("powershell.exe \"C:\Wordpress Setup\setupThemes.ps1\" $chooseTheme");

How can I execute the LESS compiler from PHP (using Symfony)?

I'm having trouble executing the lessc compiler from PHP. I'm using Symfony, and have tried using the sfLESSPlugin, but have been unsuccessful. I've put my code in a filter that executes before the page renders, so that every time the page is refreshed, my LESS files are compiled into one CSS file (don't want to have recompile manually every time I make a change, at least while I'm developing). Here are the different variations that I've attempted:
$fs = new sfFilesystem();
$command = '/Users/jordanb/node/node_modules/less/bin/lessc less/bootstrap.less css/bootstrap.css';
try
{
$fs->execute($command, null, array($this, 'throwCompilerError'));
}
catch (RuntimeException $e)
{
return false;
}
This returns an error: "Problem executing command", with an error code of 127. Digging deeper into Symfony's execute(), it calls proc_open() and then proc_close(). Some research online told me that an error code of 127 means that the command was not found.
Running the exact same command on the command line works just fine.
To be extra sure, I executed chmod 777 on /Users/jordanb/node/node_modules/less/bin/lessc, just to make sure it wasn't a permissions issue. Still didn't work.
I also tried just "lessc" instead of the full path, which didn't work. I've added lessc to my classpath, so typing "which lessc" gives me "/Users/jordanb/node/node_modules/less/bin/lessc".
I also tried a simple:
shell_exec('lessc less/bootstrap.less css/bootstrap.css');
which didn't seem to do anything. I printed the output to the PHP error log as well as to a text file, and the output was empty in both cases. I also tried using the full path in this case.
You can make a shell script that compiles things the way you want:
compile_css.sh
/Users/jordanb/node/node_modules/less/bin/lessc less/bootstrap.less css/bootstrap.css
Then
chmod +x compile_css.sh
And finally call it from your script
$command = '/path/to/compile_css.sh';
This will give you more control over what you can execute, but if you still want to do it from php, try this:
$command = '/Users/jordanb/node/node_modules/less/bin/lessc "less/bootstrap.less css/bootstrap.css"';
// note the quotes around the arguments.

Calling php from php through exec() gives no result

I have a PHP script that creates other PHP files based on user input. Basically, there are files containing language specific constants (define) that can be translated by the user. In order to avoid runtime errors, I want to test newly written files for parse errors (due to "unusual" character sequences). I have read several posts here on SO (like PHP include files with parse errors) and tried a function that uses
$output = exec("php -l $filename");
to determine whether a file parses correctly. This works perfectly on my local machine, but at on the provider's machine, the output of calls to exec("php ...") seems to be always empty. I tried a call to ls and it gives me output, leading me to the assumption that PHP is somehow configured to not react to command line invocations or so. Does anyone know a way around this?
EDIT: I forgot to mention, I had already tried shell_exec and it gives no result, either. In response to sganesh's answer: I had tried that too, sorry I forgot to mention. However, the output (second argument) will always be an empty array, and the return value will always be 127, no matter if the PHP file to test has syntax errors or not.
I had the same problem. The solution that worked for me was found in running-at-from-php-gives-no-output. I needed to add output redirection.
$output = exec("php -l $filename 2>&1");
You can try with exec second and third arguments.
second argument will have the output of the command.
third argument will have the return value.
And exec will return only last line of the command.
$filename = "a.php";
$output = exec("php -l $filename",$op,$ret_val);
print $output."\n";
print $ret_val."\n";
var_dump($op);
By executing shell_exec(), you can see the output as if you executed that file via command line. You can just see if there is an error right here.
<?php
if (strpos(shell_exec('php -l file.php'), 'Syntax Error')) {
die('An error!');
}
There may also be a possibility that shell_exec() or exec() may be disable by your host.
Nice idea to check the file validity :-)!
Now, from the PHP manual for exec():
Note: When safe mode is enabled, you can only execute files within the safe_mode_exec_dir. For practical reasons, it is currently not allowed to have components in the path to the executable.
Can you check if this is not the case for you?
Also, can you check by providing the full path of the PHP interpreter in the exec() instead of only php. Let me know how you fare.
Pinaki
the correct way is to add >2&1 as tested on a windows system using imagemagick!
I worked around my original problem by using a different method. Here is what I do now:
Write a temporary file with contents <?php include "< File to test >"; echo "OK"; ?>
Generate the correct URL for the temporary file
Perform HTTP request with this URL
Check if result equals "OK". If yes, the file to test parses without errors.
Delete temporary file
Maybe this could be done without the temporary file by issuing an HTTP request to the file to test directly. However, if there is a parse error and errors are suppressed, the output will be empty and not discernible from the output in the case of a file that gives no parse errors. This method is risky because the file is actually executed instead of just checked. In my case, there is only a limited number of users who have access to this functionality in the first place. Still, I'm naturally not entirely happy with it.
Why the exec() approach did not work, I still do not know exactly. pinaki might be right by suggesting to provide the full path to the PHP executable, but I cannot find out the full path.
Thank you everyone for answering, I upvoted you all. However, I cannot accept any of your answers as none of your suggestions really solved my problem.

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