Calling shell script from a Servlet.

[Liza]

Hi, I'm trying to call a shell script from a standalone Java App and
from a Servlet. I have no problems executing the two following lines
in a regular Java program:
Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process process = runtime.exec(" bash /usr/bin/mydir/myscript.sh");

When I try to do the same thing from a Servlet I get nothing. Is that
because Tomcat should be able to find a directory where shell script
resides? Should I put a symbolic link somewhere in Tomcat home
directory to the directory where shell script resides? Or there is
some other problem with calling a shell script from the servlet?
Thanks in advance.
N.K.

 

[John C. Bollinger]

Hi, I'm trying to call a shell script from a standalone Java App and
from a Servlet. I have no problems executing the two following lines
in a regular Java program:
Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process process = runtime.exec(" bash /usr/bin/mydir/myscript.sh");

When I try to do the same thing from a Servlet I get nothing. Is that
because Tomcat should be able to find a directory where shell script
resides? Should I put a symbolic link somewhere in Tomcat home
directory to the directory where shell script resides? Or there is
some other problem with calling a shell script from the servlet?
Thanks in advance.
N.K.

More likely it is that bash is not in the path in the environment where
your process runs. You should specify an absolute path to it. (Always
a good idea security-wise, anyway.) You have already specified an
absolute path to the script, so finding it should not be a problem
unless Tomcat has been subjected to a chroot, or something like that.
It could, however, be an access permission issue -- the user account or
group under which Tomcat runs must have read access to the script (and
read / execute to bash, and possibly read and even execute on all the
directories from root to each).


John Bollinger
(e-mail address removed)