Hello.

I have bash script with following:

#!/bin/bash
[bla-bla]
echo "`which mkdir` -p /var/www/test1"
`which mkdir` -p /var/www/test1

and I call this script from my php page:

<?php
$output = shell_exec('/usr/bin/my-script.sh');
echo "<pre>$output</pre>";
?>

and i got following output
"/bin/mkdir -p /var/www/test1", i.e. everything should be fine, BUT folder is not created.

when i'm trying to run shell script from shell - all OK, folder created.

apache (which runs my php script) runs unded www-data user who has permission to run my shell script and create folders (i've tested it like this: su www-data && ./my-script.sh).

so, i cannot guess what is wrong

"which" relies on your PATH variable. This is set when a user logs in based on things like .bashrc or .profile (and global analogs of same). A script run from command line inherits environmental variablees from your login. A script run by a background process (like cron or init) typically runs as the user but does NOT source in these files (.bashrc/.profile etc...) so would not inherit it. You can solve this by specifically source such files within your script (use the . to source a file e.g. ". /root/.bashrc).

An easier way to solve it is to just hard code the variable or fully qualified path name you need in the script.

export PATH="path_to_mkdir"
mkdir -p ...
-OR JUST-
path_to_mkdir/mkdir -p ...

Since I don't know much about php I can't say whether it may have other issues to address but the above occurs in a lot of different scenarios so may be your solution.

if we want to express it easier. when you excute a command from command prompt you are user of this computer and you have specific access, but when you excute some thing using webserver you are zero user so you dont have many previleges. You can fix it as jlightner said. but you have to be careful beacause you may make a security hole in your system.

when i'm executing my bash script from php, echo command (echo "`which mkdir` -p /var/www/test1") gives me right output "/bin/mkdir -p /var/www/test1". that means that "which" was able to locate mkdir executable..
I think that PATH variable is not the root for this problem.
But anyway, i'll try to hard-code executable location, who knows, may be it will help..

My webserver (apache) runs under www-data user. I've tried to logon with this user, and manually create this folder (which my script attempts to create) and i was able to do it.