Hello Richard, thank you for the prompt reply. I just tried to follow your suggestion, but i couldn't solve my problem: 1. I have started the server with user "nobody". All the binaries i was trying to execute(e.g. /bin/ls) were "chown"-ed to the user "nobody" Problem presisted. Than i "chown" -ed /var/www to the user "nobody". Than the php and php-cgi interpreters as well- same thing. I tried the same with users "adm" and even "root" 2. I than gave the executables all the permissions possible("777"- i know it is dangerous, but i am just testing)- still nothing. I copied the binaries from /bin to /var/www and tried to execute them with all kinds of permissions and "chown"'s- didn't work 3. Than i moved to the command line interpreter: i tried to execute it in /var/www and in the home folder. The permissions were also adjusted. I executed it with root privileges- i always get "Segmentation fault". One more thing- if i omit the arguments in shell_exec( "$output = shell_exec();) i get "Missing parameters" but no "Segmentation fault" Boyan On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 4:34 PM, <admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > It seems most probably a permission problem. If I were you I would > check the permissions on the bin directory and the files in it. PHP > will probably run under the uid of the webserver, which, on most > systems is either "apache" or "nobody" depending on the configuration. > > Richard L. Buskirk > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Boyan Penev [mailto:boyan.mp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 11:16 AM > To: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Problem with "shell_exec" > > Hello, > > i have installed php 5.2.14 on an embedded system. I have run a couple of > test scripts and everything works fine, > but i can't get "shell_exec" to work. When i invoke "shell_exec", the > script doesn't get interpreted, instead > i get prompted to download the whole .php file. I have tried both /bin/php > and /bin/php-cgi- same problem. > When i try to execute it per command line instead of web server, with both > php and php-cgi i get "Segmentation fault" > and nothing happens. I use busybox http as a web server, if it's relevant. > Does anybody have an idea what the problem > might be? Any help would be appreciated. > > Best regards, > > Boyan > >