How to check if the exec() function is enabled in my PHP install

Question

I am NOT a technical person, so im trying to download a backup manager extension for my app on the droplet but it requires:

the exec() function enabled in your PHP install since it will call a few command line commands to create the backups. Additionally, this only works on a linux environment where the “tar” and “mysqldump” commands are available (99% of linux servers have them)

is there detailed steps on how i can do this in putty or winscp? i have a lamp on ubunutu 20.04 using php version 7.4.3

alexdo · Accepted Answer

Hello, @adamSar

If you’ve already configured the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) setup using our tutorial:

How To Install Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack on Ubuntu 20.04

then PHP is already configured as you mentioned the version is 7.4.3

You can create a PHP info file and check if the exec function is enabled/disabled. You can create a file named phpinfo.php (the name doesn’t really matter) and put the following content in the file:

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

The file must be present inside your public_html folder so you can then access the file via your browser and check the PHP information. Once the file is added go to your browser and access the file using your domain name or IP address, e.g yourdomain.com/phpinfo.php or IPaddress/phpinfo.php

You can search for disable_functions and if exec is listed it means it is disabled. To enable it just remove the exec from the line and then you need to restart Apache and you will be good to go.

If exec is not listed in the disable_functions line it means that it is enabled.

Hope that this helps! Regards, Alex

KFSys · Answer

Hi @adamSar , If you already have PHP installed on your droplet, you can SSH to it, create a new file, for example test_exec.php like so touch test_exec.php Then inside of it, add the following <?php if(function_exists('exec')) { echo "exec is enabled"; } Save the file and execute it like so php test_exec.php If it returns an output of exec is enabled, you’ll know you have exec enabled. Now, if you don’t have PHP installed. Ubuntu sudo apt install software-properties-common sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php sudo apt update Install PHP 7.3 for Apache sudo apt install php7.3 Install PHP 7.3 for Nginx sudo apt install php7.3-fpm Install PHP 7.3 Extensions You can use the following command to install the most needed PHP extensions sudo apt install php7.3-common php7.3-mysql php7.3-xml php7.3-xmlrpc php7.3-curl php7.3-gd php7.3-imagick php7.3-cli php7.3-dev php7.3-imap php7.3-mbstring php7.3-opcache php7.3-soap php7.3-zip php7.3-intl -y

Question

How to check if the exec() function is enabled in my PHP install

Try DigitalOcean for free

Popular Topics

Get our biweekly newsletter

Hollie's Hub for Good

Become a contributor

Featured on Community

DigitalOcean Products

Welcome to the developer cloud

Get started for free