Running shell script from php and then php script from shell, can't get it to work

Question

I'm running an .sh script from php with exec (tried shell_exec and passthru too) and appending the command with > /dev/null 2>&1 & so the php script frees up the browser. Then in the shell script I'm running another php file and capturing the response of that php file into a variable. The shell script ends up calling index.php on the server instead of the supplied php file.

Here's my php command to run the shell script:

exec(BASE.'/../shellfile.sh '.$arg1.' '.$arg2.' '.$arg3.' > /dev/null 2>&1 &');

And here's my command to run a php file from the shell script:

VAR1=$(php -q $BASE/processingfile.php $FOLDER/temp.txt)

Side notes:

BASE is defined in PHP script and $arg1 , $arg2 and $arg3 are defined variables.

VAR1 , BASE and FOLDER are defined in the shell script.

I tried running BASE.'/../shellfile.sh '.$arg1.' '.$arg2.' '.$arg3.' > /dev/null 2>&1 &' BASE.'/../shellfile.sh '.$arg1.' '.$arg2.' '.$arg3.' > /dev/null 2>&1 &' BASE.'/../shellfile.sh '.$arg1.' '.$arg2.' '.$arg3.' > /dev/null 2>&1 &' from Putty with SSH and it works well. It includes correct file instead of index.php if ran directly from SSH.

So this is the logic: PHP -> Run shell file and free-up browser, Shell -> Run PHP file and capture response.

Shell script ends up calling index.php on the server instead of processingfile.php . Besides, PHP headers like X-Powered-By: PHP/5.X.XX are returned to shell script from index.php and saved into the VAR1 shell variable.

Any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong?

Additional notes:

• First PHP file is located below public folder, whereas the shell script and processingfile.php are located above the public folder

• I have an .htaccess file in public folder, but not above public

• shellfile.sh and processingfile.php are chmoded 777.

Answer 1

You may need to change from the default directory (eg the directory where index.php is) to the directory to where you want to script to run. For example, use a command similar to this to tell php where to look for the script.

exec("cd path/to/file && sh ./yourScript.sh);