PHP exec(psexec.exe) hangs indefinitely - php

Question

I have a development / testing setup on a windows box and need to test calling a background process. I am using http://www.somacon.com/p395.php as a list of options for running a background service.
Here is the sample code I am trying to run:
$string = "PsExec.exe -d cmd /c \"mspaint\"";
echo $string;
exec($string, $data);
This works when I type it into the command line.
I haven't attempted to do a lot of exec's on Windows, but it would be nice to be able to test it locally before moving to a Linux box.
Right now, I am thinking it has something to do with the fact that psexec opens a new window? I don't know how to fix that, however.
There are no apache or PHP error logs being generated, the page just never stops. This also seems to override PHP's max execution time.

Answer 1

EDIT:
This is not fully correct answer. The command psexec \\machine cmd.exe /C 1 & dir won't hang because psexec first return saying that command 1 doesn't exists in remote machine and then dir is evaluated in the local machine. I got tricked by cmd operator order. The & operator is being invoked in the local cmd.exe process, not the remote one. But the logic still applies if you quote the command: psexec \\machine cmd.exe /C "1 & dir".
Original Answer:
There is something strange going on while invoking psexec within PHP in windows. No matter if you are using shell_exec(), exec(), popen() or proc_open(). It will hang anyway.
Honestly I don't know what's going on, you could also download PsExplorer in order to trace your process command line, arguments, etc. You'll find this tool very useful.
I'm using XAMPP on Windows, and after certain tests I found this:
First of all create a test file (i.e. test.php) and place it in your web server so you can access it with this content:
<?php
echo "<pre>".shell_exec("psexec \\\\machine <options> cmd.exe /C dir")."</pre>";
?>
Note that you could use GET arguments in order to create a more flexible example. To debunk that this indeed is working before you test over a webpage, issue the command php <path-to-the-file>\test.php. That will work perfectly. But, it won't work on a web browser.
If you kill the process, you'll get the first line: El volumen de la unidad C no tiene etiqueta.. Next line, in my language there's an accent included so I thought It could be encoding (or code pages) issues. So instead of cmd.exe /C dir I tested cmd.exe /C chcp 850 && dir. That, for my surprise, works.
Then, I realize that no matter what command you set before it will also work, for instance, cmd.exe /C 123 & dir (note the single & as I'm not evaluating the command output).
Honestly, I don't know what is going on with psexec and PHP via web browser. More surprisingly, commands like cmd.exe /C copy cmd.exe cmd.exe.deleteme and cmd.exe /C mkdir deletethis will work!
So, you could give it a try to cmd.exe /C 1 & \"mspaint\" as your problem and my seems similars. For single commands could be a workaround but I'm developing an unattended framework for installing software and all my files are .cmd or .exe or .bat files.
Let me know If you found something interesting :)

Answer 2

I have a solution!
This topic is old but still relevant. I wanted to use PsExec 2.2 with PHP 7.2.0 RC3 to execute a script remotely. I need the output of the script and so i was using PsExec.exe -accepteula \\HOST -u xxx -p xxx with >> LOGFILE 2>&1.
Because I dont want to wait the script to finish, I used exec() like this: exec('start /p cmd /c PsExec.exe -accepteula \\HOST -u xxx -p xxx >> LOGFILE 2>&1').
My php script continues working and PsExec does his job too.
Everything works fine but my LOGFILE always contains only the first line of the STDOUT output.
I have tried many solutions mentioned here, but none of them worked for me. Executing the command in the CMD directly, PsExec returns all lines of STDOUT but inside php it does not.
At the php doc for exec() I have found comments where some people used PsExec to run a programm without waiting (http://php.net/manual/de/function.exec.php#86438). As a last chance I tried the following: exec('PsExec.exe -accepteula -i -d cmd /c PsExec.exe -accepteula \\HOST -u xxx -p xxx >> LOGFILE 2>&1')... And it works!
PsExec now returns everthing into my LOGFILE. I hope I could help you and save you some time.

Answer 3

My current solution was to use WScript.Shell:
$string = "cmd /c \"cd {$full_base}{$newSource} && ant release > compile.txt\"";
$Shell = new COM("WScript.Shell");
$exec = $Shell->Run($string, 0, false);

Answer 4

Not sure if this was definitively answered or not, but I was having the same problem with PSEXEC hanging, though in my case, on some machines it did, and others it didn't. It turned out to be accepting the EULA. On machines that I'd run it from a command line and used the same username/password as my PHP script, it ran without hanging.
Further research showed that I could specify the EULA acceptance by including it in the command being executed from PHP:
This DID hang: psexec \\MACHINENAME ...
This did NOT: psexec /accepteula \\MACHINENAME ...

Answer 5

ok here are the things. I also jumped into similar condition as you were and hopefully since i am commenting this late you must have figured out a way too .But for those who are still in this problem , i suggest them few tips .
1)The code that has been posted is super fine , no problem with that thing. If your page hangs out infinitely then try to add -i -d params before the source exe. (see the documentation HERE ). You can also add -accepteula (EULA) flag in the command to let the page load and not to wait for that command to finish(solves the infinite wait problem).
2)For me these things didnt work . It doesnt mean that you guys dont try these things .these are the first steps if your code starts working then thats fine for you.Else ,make another account as an adminstrative one ,type services.msc in the start menu , you will see the page there. Search for wampapache or xammp services ,excluding mysqld one. Then simply click on that service .GO to log on tab ,select This account .Select the previously made admin acc , type its password if you set that else leave the textbox empty.Type the name of that account as \\accname at the name field . If u dont know the account name ,Click to Browse->Advanced->FInd now you will see that name account . Select, apply settings and restart the wamp app and you are good to go :)

Answer 6

Also make sure to double check the string you feed into your exec command. Seems trivial, but had me stumped for awhile. In many cases PHP escapes the double backslash in your machine address which throws everything off. To get around this, create your string like:
$string = 'PSExec /accepteula \\\\MACHINENAME ...'