Hi Everyone,

I have written a script using shell and uemcli(Unity/EMC), which executes fine from backend. But, when I execute the same script using php i.e frontend, it fails.

Below is the code:

shell script code-

uemcli -d 11.11.22.33 -u test -p test@123 /env/sp show
uemcli -d 11.11.22.33 -u test -p test@123 /env/disk show

These are the commands that works fine in black screen. But it doesn't execute when called using php. There is no error being shown in apache error logs or in /var/log/messages.

Below is the code of php file

{ shell_exec("/usr/bin/sh /test/test.sh"); }

Two points, shouldn't that be /bin/sh instead? Check the path.

Also, even that should not be needed if /test/test.sh is both executable (+x bit set) and has #!/bin/sh as its first line.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi Turbo,

These have been applied to the file. It is just that I didn't post it.

shouldn't that be /bin/sh instead?
Actually, I have other codes, where I'm already using /usr/bin/sh successfully

Thank You

Please use CODE tags.

Aside from the INCREDIBLY BAD security for such a thing, you should be able to just put "#!/bin/sh" as the first line of your script, as said by Turbocapitalist. However, why /bin/sh, as opposed to the MUCH more common /bin/bash? And you are just putting 'uemcli' in...you probably need to use a fully-qualified path, such as /usr/bin/uemcli (or wherever that program lives; run 'which uemcli' to find out). Is that script executable??? What are the permissions, and who owns it? Since you're running a shell script through PHP, your web server needs permissions to run that file and/or the subsequent commands IN that script. So if you need sudo rights to run uemcli...it'll die right there.

And you won't get PHP errors, since your PHP code is working just fine...it's the shell script that's not. Run it from the command line to see what you get, with something like "php /path/to/file.php".

2 members found this post helpful.

Hi TB0ne,

As per your suggestion, I have added the full path for uemcli i.e. /usr/bin/uemcli (got this o/p by running cmd whereis uemcli). Changed the first line to #!/bin/bash from #!/bin/sh

Permission of apache service is wwwrun, so this ownership is already provided to the php and shell script files. 755 permission is set for shell script.

Still the code doesn't work. No error logs. Shell script runs fine from command line.

FYI, php page has a refresh button. Once that is hit, shell script is been invoked. Here it gets failed.


Thank You

Again, does that command need sudo rights to run from the command line?? And can you run that PHP script (*NOT* the shell script), from the command line by invoking it with "php /some/path/to/script.php"??? There are many guides on how to debug a PHP script: https://www.php.net/manual/en/debugger.php

Without any error messages to go by, there is absolutely nothing we can tell you. And have you verified that the uemcli command syntax is correct? Because it's different in the EMC documentation. And if the ENTIRETY of your PHP 'program' is a one-line call to a shell script...what do you think is going to happen?? It's spawning that system call, and returning. You're not capturing any data/variables, or putting them to the screen. It's doing exactly what you told it.

1 members found this post helpful.

To debug PHP code, you need to enable the error logging. Have you done that? Add this to the top of your PHP script

add this to php.ini file:
You can also use Xdebug for debugging in PHP. Since you are using Linux, you can install it using this command;

Now add this to xdebug.ini file

Source: https://www.cloudways.com/blog/php-debug-with-xdebug/
https://www.php.net/manual/en/debugger.php