Executing shell script using exec()?

[bobmct]

  In my php web program I'm trying to execute a bash shell script on the web server passing to it some parameters gathered within the program.  Ideally I wouldl ike to run this script as another user.  However, I get only a return code of "1" and no other error messages that I can see.

 

I tried using system and passthru as well and I'm sure the script is executable by anyone.  I've also tried the sticky bit on the target shell script.

 

Can someone/anyone please provide some gotcha pointers about doing this?  As can be expected, after playing with this for a week now I'm extremely frustrated and nearly exhausted my resources (except for this forum).

 

Ideas/suggestions please?

 

Thanks 

[xyph]

What happens when you run this script:

 

<?php 

exec( 'whoami', $return, $result );

print_r( $return );

?>

[bobmct]

The web server is running as user www-data and the script is owned by podcast:podcast with the permissions of rwsr-xr-x

 

The target script is already in production run by cron and sometimes from the CLI.  Hope this helps

[xyph]

I'm trying to verify that PHP is properly executing external applications, thus my example.

 

If the output of whoami is as expected, then it's a pathing or permission issue.

 

Have you read the user comments about exec in the manual? There are a lot of 'gotcha's that require a little more knowledge about your setup than you've provided.

[bobmct]

Thanks - I do believe its a permissions issue.  I have read through all the comments under the referenced functions found in us.php.net but I will read them again.  Perhaps I've missed something.  I will post my result after I have an opportunity to reread those comments.  Bob