PHP execute shell command permission denied

Question

I installed an application (bagit) via homebrew and am trying to execute a shell command from my local Apache server (installed on OSX).

My PHP looks like this:

$cmd =  'bag create '.$targetFolder.' '.$sourceFolder.' --baginfotxt '.$bagInfoFile ." 2>&1";
$output = shell_exec($cmd);

However, I am getting the following error message:

/bin/bash: /usr/local/bin/bag: Permission denied

How can I give Apache access to the bash command located in `/usr/local/bin?

Answer 1

Your apache install will need to be running as the same user/group as the files its trying to execute.

You can either change the file permissions of the application you are trying to execute to the same as apache/php current user/group (or 777 etc..)

or you can change apache/php to run as a more priviliaged user/group.

• Alternatively

You could change the method of your application to SSH into your executable environment and execute the application over SSH.

Answer 2

When PHP tries to exec something, it will do as the default web server user ( apache , www-data or httpd ). Make sure that the command to run has the right ownership / permissions. The easiest way to reach this is to add your web server user to a new group, lets say test , and chgrp test /usr/local/bin/bag