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I have a problem where I am trying to copy a file that is generated on a server drive that I have mounted using the php exec command. However, the command doesn't work (although the return status is 1) when called from a web-page. 

$src = "/mnt/...";
$dest = "/var/www/...";
exec("cp $src $dest");

I have tried printing out the command to make sure it is correct, and it is. I have also tried making sure the file exists before attempting to copy it and it is.

if (file_exists($src)) {
    exec("cp $src $dest");
}

Copying the command directly into the terminal works.

$ >cp /mnt/... /var/www/...

I've also tried using the php command line tool to run the exec command and that also works.

$ >php -r 'exec("cp /mnt/... /var/www/...");'

I have also tried using shell_exec as well, with the same results.

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1  
This is probably because php is being run under a different user on the system, and that that user does not have the rights to do that action on those files. You could look into sudo to perform this –  Frank Aug 27 at 18:15
 
Wouldn't I get a status code of 0 then? –  BLenau Aug 27 at 18:16
 
Last time I had this error, I didn't think of looking at the status code so I can't be sure of that, sorry. But using sudo did fix my problems –  Frank Aug 27 at 18:32
1  
I bet PHP doesn't have permissions to either copy the file from source, or it doesn't have permissions to copy to the destination. Or it could be both. –  Ryan Naddy Aug 27 at 18:33
1  
Try to check is_writable($dest). Chances are it's false, which means, as others have said, the PHP user cannot write to it. Usually PHP is ran as the apache (www-data) or nobody user. Run echo exec("whoami"); to see the user it's running as. –  Rocket Hazmat Aug 27 at 18:44

2 Answers

up vote 0 down vote

You can add the second parameter to help debug, $output will display what the cp command is doing, whether it be an error or not.

I would also recommend placing quotes around the files, just in case something with a space gets in there.

$src = "/mnt/...";
$dest = "/var/www/...";
exec("cp '$src' '$dest'", $output, $retrun_var);

var_dump($output, $retrun_var);
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up vote 0 down vote

I had a similar issue a while ago. It was essentially what all the commentators are saying. The user/permission of the web server are restricted, but also the shell environment that is being used and/or the PATH environment variable.

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