php exec in the background with WAMP on Windows - php

with the following code i can call a php script and pass some variables into it
$cmd = 'php -f C:/wamp/www/np/myphpscript.php '.$var1;
exec($cmd);
this way my called script works, but , i need that process to be in the background , i dont want to wait for the script to finish, is there any way of doing that using wamp on windows ?
been doing some reading and some add a & at the end of the command, or a > NUL , now i noticed some of them are for linux , is there such a command for wamp on windows ? if there is please share it

EDIT: Due to the way the exec() command waits for the program to finish executing, it's very difficult to do this with vanilla exec(). I came across these solutions, and this one should work:
$rshell = new COM("WScript.Shell");
$rexec = $rshell->Run("php -f C:/wamp/www/np/myphpscript.php ".$var1, 0, false);
The WScript.Shell->Run command takes 3 arguments: the command (you can optionally add output redirection), window mode (0 = hidden), and wait it should wait to finish. Because the 3rd argument is false, this PHP should return immediately.
Original Solution: As this post suggests, you should try START /B cmd. It is virtually the Linux equivalent of cmd & in that it runs the command asynchronously, in the background, without user interaction or opening a new shell.
Because this will return immediately, PHP won't wait for it to finish, and the exec() command will not receive any output. Instead, try using shell output redirection. Your PHP given code would look like this:
$cmd = 'start /b "" php -f C:/wamp/www/np/myphpscript.php '.$var1.' >C:/wamp/www/np/output.txt';
exec($cmd);

Don't know what you are running and if you get a response to your command. But maybe it helps if you open a tab for each command. So you can see responses of each running script and at the end you can call javascript to close the tab.

You must set the variable php on windows environment !
If you have already done so skip the tutorials steps:
1. Open:
My Computer => Properties => Change Settings
2. Select the tab: Advanced
3. Click Environment Variables: Variable system
4. Click the button New
Add the name of the environment variable. Example = php
Add the path to executable php.exe. Example = D:\xampp\php\php.exe
Create a file myscript.php
The variariaveis $argc and $argv are native php.
You will notice that $ argc always carries the same value as the
result of calling count ($argv) in any case $argc is the standard
used and is a few milliseconds faster by being in memory (if that
makes any difference in performance your script).
//\n skip line
echo "\n\n";
//echo test debug
echo "Print Total Args : ";
//Print return variavel $argc
print_r($argc);
//\n skip line
echo "\n\n";
//echo test debug
echo "Print Array Args : \n\n";
//Print return variavel $argv
print_r($argv);
echo "\n";
// You can retrieve the arguments in the normal way.
$myvar_count = $argc;
$myvar_array_args = $argv;
Or if you want to set is not the environment variable, simply can call the path
Example: D:\xampp\php\php.exe myscript.php argument1 2 3 4 5
Retorn the Prompt in Windows
Total Args : 5
Array Args :
Array
(
[0] => test.php
[1] => argumento1
[2] => 2
[3] => 3
[4] => 4
)
I hope this helps! See you later!

Related

Open Linux terminal command in PHP

I have a server running on Linux that execute commands to 12 nodes (12 computers with Linux running in them). I recently downloaded PHP on the server to create web pages that can execute commands by opening a specific PHP file.
I used exec(), passthru(), shell_​exec(), and system(). system() is the only one that returns a part of my code. I would like PHP to act like open termainal command in linux and I cannot figure out how to do it!
Here is an example of what is happening now (Linux directly vs PHP):
When using linux open terminal command directly:
user#wizard:/home/hyperwall/Desktop> /usr/local/bin/chbg -mt
I get an output:
The following settings will be used:
option = mtsu COLOR = IMAGE = imagehereyouknow!
NODES = LOCAL
and additional code to send it to 12 nodes.
Now with PHP:
switch($_REQUEST['do'])
{ case 'test':
echo system('/usr/local/bin/chbg -mt');
break;
}
Output:
The following settings will be used:
option = mtsu COLOR = IMAGE = imagehereyouknow!
NODES = LOCAL
And stops! Anyone has an explanation of what is happening? And how to fix it? Only system displays part of the code the other functions display nothing!
My First thought is it can be something about std and output error. Some softwares dump some informations on std out and some in std error. When you are not redirecting std error to std out, most of the system calls only returns the stdout part. It sounds thats why you see the whole output in terminal and can't in the system calls.
So try with
/usr/local/bin/chbg -mt 2>&1
Edit:
Also for a temporary work through, you can try some other things. For example redirect the output to file next to the script and read its contents after executing the command, This way you can use the exec:
exec("usr/local/bin/chbg -mt 2>&1 > chbg_out");
//Then start reading chbg_out and see is it work
Edit2
Also it does not make sense why others not working for you.
For example this piece of code written in c, dumps a string in stderr and there is other in stdout.
#include <stdio.h>
#include<stdlib.h>
int main()
{
fputs("\nerr\nrro\nrrr\n",stderr);
fputs("\nou\nuu\nuttt\n",stdout);
return 0;
}
and this php script, tries to run that via exec:
<?php
exec("/tmp/ctest",&$result);
foreach ( $result as $v )
{
echo $v;
}
#output ouuuuttt
?>
See it still dumps out the stdout. But it did not receive the stderr.
Now consider this:
<?php
exec("/tmp/ctest 2>&1",&$result);
foreach ( $result as $v )
{
echo $v;
}
//output: errrrorrrouuuuttt
?>
See, this time we got the whole outputs.
This time the system:
<?php
echo system("/tmp/ctest 2>&1");
//output: err rro rrr ou uu uttt uttt
?>
and so on ...
Maybe your chbg -mt writes additional code to stderr instead of stdout? Try to execute your script inside php like this:
/usr/local/bin/chbg -mt 2>&1
The other responses are good for generic advice. But in this specific case, it appears you are trying to change your background on your desktop. This requires many special considerations because of 'user context':
First, your web server is probably running as a different user, and therefore would not have permissions to change your desktop.
Second, the program probably requires some environmental variables from your user context. For example, X programs need a DISPLAY variable, ssh-agent needs SSH_AGENT_PID and SSH_AUTH_SOCK, etc. I don't know much about changing backgrounds, but I'm guessing it involves D-Bus, which probably requires things like DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS, KONSOLE_DBUS_SERVICE, KONSOLE_DBUS_SESSION, and KONSOLE_DBUS_WINDOW. There may be many others. Note that some of these vars change every time you log in, so you can't hard-code them on the PHP side.
For testing, it might be simpler to start your own webserver right from your user session. (i.e. Don't use the system one, it has to run as you. You will need to run it on an alternate port, like 8080). The web server you start manually will have all the 'context' it needs. I'll mention websocketd because it just came out and looks neat.
For "production", you may need to run a daemon in your user context all the time, and have the web server talk to that daemon to 'get stuff done' inside your user context.
PHP's system only returns the last line of execution:
Return Value: Returns the last line of the command output on success, and FALSE on failure.
You will most likely want to use either exec or passthru. exec has an optional parameter to put the output into an array. You could implode the output and use that to echo it.
switch($_REQUEST['do'])
{ case 'test':
exec('/usr/local/bin/chbg -mt', $output);
echo implode('\n', $output); // Could use <br /> if HTML output is desired
break;
}
I think that the result of execution, can changes between users.
First, try to run your PHP script directly into your terminal php yourScript.php
If it runs as expected, go to your Apache service and update it to run with your own credentials
You are trying to change the backgrounds for currently logged in users... While they are using the desktop. Like while I'm typing this message. I minimize my browser and 'ooh my desktop background is different'. Hopefully this is for something important like it turns red when the reactor or overheating.
Anyway to my answer:
Instead of trying to remotely connect and run items as the individual users. Setup each user to run a bash script (in their own account, in their own shell) on a repeating timer. Say every 10 minutes. Have it select the SAME file.. from a network location
/somenetworkshare/backgrounds/images/current.png
Then you can update ALL nodes (1 to a million) just by changing the image itself in /somenetworkshare/backgrounds/images/current.png
I wrote something a while ago that does just this -- you can run a command interpreter (/bin/sh), send it commands, read back responses, send more commands, etc. It uses proc_open() to open a child process and talk to it.
It's at http://github.com/andrasq/quicklib, Quick/Proc/Process.php
Using it would look something like (easier if you have a flexible autoloader; I wrote one of those too in Quicklib):
include 'lib/Quick/Proc/Exception.php';
include 'lib/Quick/Proc/Exists.php';
include 'lib/Quick/Proc/Process.php';
$proc = new Quick_Proc_Process("/bin/sh");
$proc->putInput("pwd\n");
$lines = $proc->getOutputLines($nlines = 10, $timeoutSec = 0.2);
echo $lines[0];
$proc->putInput("date\n");
$lines = $proc->getOutputLines(1, 0.2);
echo $lines[0];
Outputs
/home/andras/quicklib
Sat Feb 21 01:50:39 EST 2015
The unit of communication between php and the process is newline terminated lines. All commands must be newline terminated, and all responses are retrieved in units of lines. Don't forget the newlines, they're hard to identify afterward.
I am working on a project that uses Terminal A on machine A to output to Terminal B on Machine B, both using linux for now. I didnt see it mentioned, but perhaps you can use redirection, something like this in your webserver:
switch($_REQUEST['do'])
{ case 'test':
#process ID on the target (12345, 12346 etc)
echo system('/usr/local/bin/chbg -mt > /proc/<processID>/fd/1');
#OR
#device file on the target (pts/0,tty0, etc)
echo system('/usr/local/bin/chbg -mt > /dev/<TTY-TYPE>/<TTYNUM>');
break;
}
Definitely the permissions need to be set correctly for this to work. The command "mesg y" in a terminal may also assist...Hope that helps.

How can I run a script in another process on Windows Server 2008, using PHP v5.4?

The main reason is because I don't want to hold up the current PHP process. I want users to be able to navigate around during the script execution.
The script in question (importer.php) updates a txt file with a percentage as it completes, javascript intercepts this txt file and outputs the percentage using a timer every 5 seconds to keep the user updated (all in the form of a load bar).
I've been able to launch the script like so:
$cmd = '"C:\/path\/to\/v5.4\/php" importer.php';
pclose(popen($cmd, "r"));
exit;
This runs the script, but hangs the current process until importer.php completes. Is there a way to get out of the current process and launch this using another one instead?
I read that using & at the end of the cmd tells the script to not wait, but I believe this is a *nix command and since I'm running on a Windows box, I can't use it... unless perhaps there is an alternative for Windows?
According to the documentation at http://php.net/passthru you should be able to execute your command using that, as long as you redirect your output.
$cmd = '"C:\/path\/to\/v5.4\/php" importer.php';
// Use passthrough here, and redirect the output to a temp textfile.
passthru($cmd . '>%TEMP%\importerOutput.txt');
exit;
I was able to resolve this issue by using a WshShell Object; WScript.Shell
$WshShell = new COM("WScript.Shell");
$WshShell->Run('"C:\/path\/to\/v5.4\/php-win.exe" -f "C:\/path\/to\/code\/snippet\/importer.php" var1 var2 var3', 0, false);
Note: I have spaces in my file structure so I needed to add quotes around the paths to the files. I was also able to pass variables, var1, var2, and var3. I've also used \/ to escape my slashes.
I'll break the Run array down a bit for my case:
The first; is the command you want to run (path to php, path to script, and variables to pass).
The second; 0 - Hides the window and activates another window (link below for more options).
The third; false - Boolean value indicating whether the script should wait for the program to finish executing before continuing to the next statement in your script. If set to true, script execution halts until the program finishes.
For more information on WScript.Shell visit http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/d5fk67ky(v=vs.84).aspx for details.
Hope this helps someone else!

PHP Exec Won't Launch Executables

As part of my troubleshooting of being unable to launch SRCDS (the dedicated server for the Source game engine), I decided to try out launching some other executables (specifically Chrome and Firefox). Neither of those were launched, however. The page loaded (didn't hang as it does with SRCDS), but when checking Windows Task Manager, the processes were never actually launched. $output is a 0-length array, $return_var is 1 (giving me no information on the actual error happening.
The code I use is (no change occurs when using system or passthru instead of exec):
<?php
// Save the current working directory, then set it to SRCDS' directory
$old_path = getcwd();
chdir("C:/Users/Johan/Desktop/SteamCMD/tf2/");
// Launch SRCDS. Only the 3rd exec allows the page to load.
//$tmp = exec("srcds -console -game tf +map ctf_2fort 2>&1",$output,$output2);
//$tmp = exec("srcds -console -game tf +map ctf_2fort >> tmp.txt",$output,$output2);
$tmp = exec("srcds -console -game tf +map ctf_2fort 1>/dev/null/ 2/&1",$output,$output2);
echo "<p>SRCDS Output: ".sizeof($output)."</p>";
echo "<p>SRCDS Output2: ".$output2."</p>";
// Test execution of other files
// test.bat echoes %time%
$tmp2 = exec("test.bat");
echo $tmp2;
// Trying to launch another executable
chdir("C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox");
$tmp2 = exec("firefox", $output, $output2);
echo $tmp2;
echo "<p>FF Output:".sizeof($output)."</p>";
echo "<p>FF Output2:".$output2."</p>";
// End
chdir($old_path);
echo "Done.";
?>
This outputs:
SRCDS Output: 0
SRCDS Output2: 1
0:47:59,79
FF Output:0
FF Output2:1
Done.
My question is, is there any reason for this? Am I doing this incorrectly?
It looks like you are:
on Windows
trying to launch an external program asynchronously
Here is the secret sauce that will allow you to do so:
function async_exec_win($cmd)
{
$wshShell = new COM('WScript.Shell');
$wshShell->Run($cmd, 0, false); // NB: the second argument is meaningless
// It just has to be an int <= 10
}
This requires the COM class to be available to your PHP instance, you may need to enable extension=php_com_dotnet.dll in php.ini (since PHP 5.3.15/5.4.5) in order to make it available.
Also note that this will require a full file name of the file you wish to execute, as the extension search list will not be used outside cmd.exe. So instead of srcds -console ... you'll want srcds.exe -console ... - personally I don't like the chdir() approach, I'd rather pass the full path of the exe into the function instead - but if you do this, you'll need to make sure the directory separators are of the correct type for the operating system. PHP will let you use whatever you like wherever you like, the OS won't be so forgiving.
For completeness, here's how to do a similar thing on *nix. This is actually better than the Windows version as it also returns the PID of the process that was created:
function async_exec_unix($cmd)
{
return (int) exec($cmd . ' > /dev/null 2>&1 & echo $!');
}
Something to pay attention to: your command must be properly escaped. Neither of these implementations perform any validation on the command being executed, they just run it blindly. Never pass user input to an external program without escaping it as appropriate to the host operating system!

Starting shell process under www-data (apache2, php)

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?
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

retrieve R output in PHP

Here's the issue:
I am using R to run some statistical analysis. The results of which will eventually be sent to a an embedded swf on the user's client machine.
To do this, I have PHP execute a shell script to run the R program, and I want to retrieve the results of that program so I can parse them in PHP and respond with the appropriate data.
So, it's simply:
$output = shell_exec("R CMD BATCH /home/bitnami/r_script.R");
echo $output;
But, I receive nothing of course, because R CMD BATCH writes to a file. I've tried redirecting the output in a manner similar to this question which changes my script to
$output = shell_exec('R CMD BATCH /home/bitnami/raschPL.R /dev/tty');
echo $output;
But what I get on the console is a huge spillout of the source code, and nothing is echoed.
I've also tried this question's solution in my R script.
tl;dr; I need to retrieve the results of an R script in PHP.
Cheers!
If it writes to file perhaps you could use file_get_contents to read it?
http://php.net/manual/en/function.file-get-contents.php
Found it, the answer is through Rscript. Rscript should be included in the latest install of R.
Using my code as an example, I would enter this at the very top of r_script.R
#!/usr/bin/Rscript --options-you-need
This should be the path to your Rscript executable. This can be found easily by typing
which Rscript
in the terminal. Where I have --options-you-need, place the options you would normally have when doing the CMD BATCH, such as --slave to remove extraneous output.
You should now be able to run your script like so:
./r_script.R arg1 arg2
Important! If you get the error
Error in `contrasts<-`(`*tmp*`, value = "contr.treatment") :
could not find function "is"
You need to include the "methods" package, like so:
require("methods");
Perhaps,a much simpler workaround, would be:
$output = shell_exec('R CMD BATCH /home/bitnami/raschPL.R > /dev/tty 2>&1');
echo $output;
Redirects both STDOUT and STDERR, since R outputs to STDERR, by default.

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