ncat command works on command line but not on php script

Question

I have this command:

echo -e 'GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n' | ncat www.website.com 80

Which works perfectly fine in the command line. It doesn't, however, work in the php script:

<?php

$html = system("echo -e 'GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n' | ncat www.website.com 80");

print $html;

?>

Instead of returning the correct html, it returns a "Your browser sent a request the server could not understand" error. How do I fix this?

Answer 1

You're writing PHP, therefore the \\n in your string were parsed by PHP into actual newlines:

$html = system("echo -e 'GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n' | ncat www.website.com 80");
                                       ^^^^^

and what you ended up sending to the shell that system() started up looked like:

echo -e 'GET / HTTP/1.0

'| ncat www.website.com 80

Try

$html = system("echo -e 'GET / HTTP/1.0\\n\\n' | ncat www.website.com 80");
                                       ^--^---note these

instead.

Answer 2

It should look like this:

<?php

$html = system("echo 'GET / HTTP/1.0\n\n' | ncat www.website.com 80");

print $html;

?>

I had to remove the -e from the echo command. I checked the packets on Wireshark and what was being sent was this:

-e GET / HTTP/1.0

Go figure...