User talk:Kc7txm

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-- Wikinews Welcome (talk) 07:15, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikinews

Thanks for making your user page. You can use external wikilinks (like this) to make them blue. If I may ask, what computer languages do you program in? Do you have your codes uploaded somewhere? Thanks, --Gryllida (talk) 07:49, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi Gryllida, thanks for the insight, I'll get those links edited. I'm still learning the ropes of all the different wiki projects. I work mostly as a LAMP software engineer (PHP, JS, ReacJS and NodeJS would be the core of the projects I manage). Kc7txm (talk) 07:58, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

You are welcome :-) This wiki is written in PHP, and gadgets for it are written in JavaScript. See www.mediawiki.org for details, and Wikinews:Tech.

Do you use the live chat at freenode? I find there are many programming groups at the same network. May be useful in case you haven't joined already. Gryllida (talk) 08:52, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Gryllida, I am not on freenode but I'll look into it, thanks for the info :) Kc7txm (talk) 19:19, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Hi Kc7txm

Seeing that you've mentioned PHP...

Today I have a quick question for you. I am running dupdet software [1] when I have moved it to a new server I receive this error message:

Warning: shell_exec() has been disabled for security reasons in /home/wikinews/public_html/dupdet/compare.php on line 200

Then I read the faulty line,

https://github.com/SvetlanaTkachenko/Duplication-Detector/blob/master/compare.php#L200

I am not sure how this software can work without this line, i.e. with this line disabled. Do you have any idea?

I would also be glad to join PHP related groups as this software is ancient and may need an update. At the moment I am only participating in the php channel at freenode and not any other groups. If you have suggestions about this, I would greatly appreciate them. Gryllida (talk) 00:36, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@Gryllida: the warning you are seeing means that shell_exec is disabled in your php.ini file. You only really need to edit /usr/local/lib/php.ini (assuming you are running PHP on a Linux machine with cPanel, if it's a Windows Server running Apache [note, why?] then it would be inside the application folder for wherever you installed it) and remove shell_exec from the DISABLED_FUNCTIONS line. After you edit the php.ini file you will want to restart apache. Kc7txm (talk) 01:32, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

<dropping in on the conversaion> I'm wondering why this apparently straightforward tool would need shell_exec() which, from its name, sounds like a substantial security risk. (When I run the tool, it appears to work except that, at the top of the output where it reports the names of the pages being compared, each is preceded by this warning.) --Pi zero (talk) 17:47, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Kc7txm and Pi zero.

Pi zero, it needs it for pdftotext command.

Kc7txm, what I am surprised is not only how to fix it (the new hosting is more limited in access and I do not think I have access to php.ini), but also how could it possibly work without this command succeeding; that makes no sense to me. I'm genuinely surprised by that. Gryllida (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@Gryllida: and @Pi zero: The shell_exec() function is usually used to directly run a command in shell on the server (the function name kind of says it all shell_exec[ute] ). If your tool is meant to interface and run another application (like running a script that strips text values out of a PDF) I could see it needing to execute commands via the shell. It can also be used as a lazy way to write some applications and it does carry a decent amount of security risk if it was written to cause harm (but honestly, that's true of plenty of applications you can run in PHP / MySQL so it's hard to assign intent or malice for calling a function). You could try reaching out to the host's support team, send them a code sample and show them the error. As a server administrator and a host for several of our client's web servers myself, having access to the php.ini is totally normative to me and I wouldn't think twice if someone requested access to the shell_exec() function. Your other option is, if that script is a must have for you, contact around to other hosts and see if they will allow you to run the shell_exec() function. You could always migrate to another host (which isn't that hard to do) or use it as leverage with your current host (i.e. "I don't want to move to XYZhosting.com but they will allow the shell_exec() function that I need and you will not."). I have used such tactics with some of our client's hosts before, most hosting companies realize it's super easy to migrate an account and will work with you even if their first answer / normally policy is no. Good luck Kc7txm (talk) 22:42, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm contacting the host about this. And just in case you can see it from the code, how come it works still"? Gryllida (talk) 02:02, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@Gryllida: that's an odd one, I suppose whatever function, task of aspect they are running with a shell_exec() is not necessary for what you are using it for? It may also be an edge case use that you are not currently using but the application verifies it has shell_exec access if needed and throws the error if it does not have permission to the shell. Kc7txm (talk) 08:54, 4 June 2019 (UTC)