run shell command with php

varunbihani · 12-05-2005, 09:22 AM

I want to run few shell commands with PHP. I need to run lsof -i :<port_no> and kill all the process running on that port number..
I tried"
<?php
$output = shell_exec('lsof -i :8080');
print "<pre>".$output."</pre>";
?>

but it did not return any results. however the command "ps -x" return results successfully..
What could be the issue..
please help

graemef · 12-05-2005, 09:47 AM

Can it find the command. I don't think lsof is in the normal path and so you may need to give the whole path to the command.

graeme.

varunbihani · 12-05-2005, 09:53 AM

this is a very common command to find the processes running on particular port..

graemef · 12-05-2005, 12:44 PM

Certainly when I check on my distribution (Fedora) it is not available a normal user. Yes the command is there but not unless I give the whole path. Since php is being executed as the user of the web server that user (apache) may not be able to see the command.

graeme

varunbihani · 12-05-2005, 09:22 PM

I tried giving full fath .. but still not able to get output..

<?php
$output = shell_exec('/usr/sbin/lsof -i :8080');
print "<pre>".$output."</pre>";
?>

chrism01 · 12-06-2005, 12:25 AM

Well, this page is quite informative: http://php.planetmirror.com/manual/e...shell-exec.php .
If you redirect stdout + stderr to a temp file, you may well find the lsof exe is not avail from the shell you are creating. The relevant msg is prob written to stderr, not stdout. Hence the above suggestion about saving it to a file.