PHP exec works on apache2 but not on nginx

Question

I'm trying to launch unoconv using exec in php. It works with apache2, but not with nginx. I've already checked my php.ini and disable_functions not contain exec in both apache2 and nginx php.ini files.

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with unconv, but I've had a similar problem with porting my server from Apache to nginx and exec .

nginx + php-fpm have a bare minimal $PATH set compared to apache , and it's likely your unoconv is not on that path.

You could try modifying your PATH settings, but a better way would be to specify the absolute path of unoconv

You can find the absolute path by using

which unoconv

You should also re-direct the error output to stdout, so you can see exactly why unoconv isn't starting

exec("/path/to/unoconv -param0 -param1 2>&1", $output);
print_r($output); //this should give failure reason

Answer 2

Check out this post : PHP exec() does not run all commands

As said in this post :

The problem is that you're running notify-send from a service. Notify-send is a desktop-oriented program which interacts with the display. But nginx runs without being attached to a display.

Imagine, for example, that there are 3 people logged on to the computer at the same time, all with different displays. When notify-send runs, it wouldn't know which display to send the notification to.