note 118111 added to function.proc-open

If you have a CLI script that prompts you for a password via STDIN, and you need to run it from PHP, proc_open() can get you there. It's better than doing "echo $password | command.sh", because then your password will be visible in the process list to any user who runs "ps". Alternately you could print the password to a file and use cat: "cat passwordfile.txt | command.sh", but then you've got to manage that file in a secure manner. If your command will always prompt you for responses in a specific order, then proc_open() is quite simple to use and you don't really have to worry about blocking & non-blocking streams. For instance, to run the "passwd" command: <?php $descriptorspec = array( 0 => array("pipe", "r"), 1 => array("pipe", "w"), 2 => array("pipe", "w") ); $process = proc_open( '/usr/bin/passwd ' . escapeshellarg($username), $descriptorspec, $pipes ); // It wil prompt for existing password, then new password twice. // You don't need to escapeshellarg() these, but you should whitelist // them to guard against control characters, perhaps by using ctype_print() fwrite($pipes[0], "$oldpassword\n$newpassword\n$newpassword\n"); // Read the responses if you want to look at them $stdout = fread($pipes[1], 1024); $stderr = fread($pipes[2], 1024); fclose($pipes[0]); fclose($pipes[1]); fclose($pipes[2]); $exit_status = proc_close($process); // It returns 0 on successful password change $success = ($exit_status === 0); ?> ---- Server IP: 72.52.91.14 Probable Submitter: 2404:130:0:1000:f09c:d761:95da:d475 ---- Manual Page -- http://php.net/manual/en/function.proc-open.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/118111 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/118111 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/118111 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php