Unable to execute a PHP script through a Bash script

Question

I have a simple test case setup like so:

exec('/path/to/bash/script', $output, $return);

That piece of code successfully launches a bash script, which contains the following:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

exec php -q /path/to/php/script.php

This is where it fails. The PHP script is never executed, and the browser just keeps waiting for a response, until it results in a 500 error after a couple of minutes.

The PHP script it's trying to run is just one line:

#!/usr/bin/php -q

<?php

    file_put_contents('/path/to/folder/output.txt', 'some text');

?>

A few things worth noting:

The Bash script runs the PHP code if I run it through the CLI.
Everything works just fine on the local server, installed through XAMPP on OS X
The problem is on the remote server. CentOS with WHM/cPanel installed.
The files mentioned above have 777 permissions.
I can't get any clues from the return values in the exec() function because the script ends with a 500 error after 'hanging' for a couple of minutes.

Any ideas?

is php in the path of the bash that's being invoked? have you try exec /absolute/path/to/php -q ...? — Marc B
– Marc B, Commented Mar 21, 2014 at 13:46
Why on earth are you using PHP to call a bash script which runs a PHP script?? — Digital Chris
– Digital Chris, Commented Mar 21, 2014 at 13:48
Why don't you just include the php script in the other php script? Save yourself a fork and two execs. — kojiro
– kojiro, Commented Mar 21, 2014 at 13:57
I forgot to add that the Bash script does run the PHP if launched through the CLI. So that means the PHP variables are setup correctly. @DigitalChris I know it looks ridiculous, but it makes sense in the actual scenario. — Botch
– Botch, Commented Mar 21, 2014 at 14:09

Botch · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-21 15:03:25Z

0

Found the solution thanks to Marc B. The issue was the path to the PHP bin. Even though /usr/bin/php path exists and the php variable was set in the environment, I needed to change both to /usr/local/bin/php. This was the correct path that I found with the PHP_BINDIR constant.

edited Mar 21, 2014 at 15:03

answered Mar 21, 2014 at 14:53

Botch

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