PHP shell_exec()

[Ghan]

So I'm working on some PHP code here and I have the following:

$string = shell_exec("ps aux | grep ntp");

Basically just trying to find a certain running process (ntp as a filler right now).
I get the following error:

sh: ntp: command not found

No idea why it's doing that. Something about the pipe in the command seems to be making it angry. Has anyone run into this and knows a solution?

 

[UndeadDragon]

Do other shell commands work on it? Is that the only one which won't work?

 

[phyrex1an]

Seems to work correctly on my system. Are you sure that the space between grep and ntp is really just a space and not a space + \r or something weird like that?

You can skip the pipe and do "ps -fC ntp" if getting a process by exec name is the only thing you want to do.