PHP exec/shell_exec/system not working through browser

Question

I am running an SCO Unix box with apache version 1.3.33 and PHP version 4.4. I can properly execute the exec command through the cli, but run into trouble with trying to execute the script via a browser. My settings are:

• safe mode off
• full read/write/exec permissions
• displaying all errors
• no disabled functions

My code: test_script.php in htdocs dir

<?php
exec('ls',$out,$rval);
echo "Output:<hr />";
print "<pre>"; print_r($out); print "</pre>";
echo "Return Value:<hr />";
echo $rval;
?>

I've tried setting the executable binary path explicitly also. The test script is the same User/Group as apache. I've also tried adding 2>&1 to the arg, but see no change. Thank you in advance.

See here for similar.

Solution

try

$output = shell_exec('ls /tmp/ 2>&1')

you might be having an issue with permissions to current directory for the user running the web page.

you can also try whoami command.