PHP exec() function returns status code 2

Question

I had a problem while using PHP exec() . I am not able to figure out the issue and I have tried with following code:

exec("pdfcrop --margins '-6 -2 -3 -2' '/home/username/pdf/Figure 1 Timeline of Virtual Sim Use/page.01.pdf' '/home/username/pdf/out/output.pdf'", $output, $error);

Whenever I use this commands in exec() it returns status code of 2 but if I use this command to my terminal then it works well. So kindly give your suggestion to solve this problem.

thank you..

Answer 1

php exec function runs the process under the apache user ( www-data ) user most probably this user does not have access to : /home/username/pdf/Figure

You can test this very easy by trying to change this path to /tmp/name of pdf file.pdf

Answer 2

pdfcrop is a Perl program. Opening it to read, you will find it creates tmp files in current directory.
It works in PHP call after I made the following changes:

• $tmp = "/tmp/tmp-..."

• pdftex - add argument -output-directory=/tmp

Answer 3

In case of Linux Debian 9.5 I have got from Php exec() function return code 2 because wrong console for user www-data in /etc/passwd file: I had to change line:

www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/usr/sbin/nologin

To:

www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/bin/bash

And now error gone and commands are executed as expected!