How to use kdeconnect-cli with Apache2 and PHP

[updated again!] stop changing my question it became unprecise.

I have kdeconnect 1.4.0 installed on Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS Focal and it is functional. I am able to text from the command line using the user that I used installed kdeconnect with.

My current task is to have the command "kdeconnect-cli" executable by Apache2 version 2.4.41 with PHP version 7.4.

I thought it would be as simple as adding the path to the command to the PHP.INI, but that does nothing.

Apache2 runs as the user www-data and I have made these changes to grant the privilege and run the command. But it still does not work.

• I used shell_exec and it returns blank. I have tested this and get no output

$command = "kdeconnect-cli --send-sms $message --destination $phoneNumber --device 26de31sdfbc6b97f"; $output = shell_exec($command); echo "<pre>$output</pre>";

• I added the command to the /etc/php/7.4/cli/php.ini file

include_path = ".:/usr/bin"

• I added this line to the sudoers file

www-data ALL=(KDEUSER) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/kdeconnect_cli

• I've tried making a .sh file that run the kdeconnect-cli and it works in the terminal, but it does not if run by 'www-data' in PHP

My ultimate goal is to run kdeconnect-cli with PHP, what am I missing?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. Don't edit my question.

One way

There is a built-in function for that in PHP called shell_exec

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

shell_exec — Execute command via shell and return the complete output as a string

Another way

Save your PHP form data to a file on your system and parse it immediately in bash. The steps are easy:

• Create a directory with read and write permissions for both the user that will run the PHP web-page e.g. www-data and the user that will run the bash script e.g. you.

• Run a bash script in the background as a process to monitor for newly created files in the directory, parse them to send the messages and then delete them afterwords... utilizing inotify-tools like so:

  #!/bin/bash
  
  # Change the path to directory and the device accordingly
  
  path_to_directory="/full/path/to/the/directory/to/save/messages/"
  device="26de31sdfbc6b97f" 
  
  inotifywait -m "$path_to_directory" -e create |
  while IFS=' ' read path action file;
      do
      echo "$path$file was created"
      while IFS='|' read -r n m
          do      
          echo "Sending: $m ---> $n via $device"
          kdeconnect-cli --send-sms "$m" --destination "$n" --device "$device"
          done < "$path$file"
      rm "$path$file"
      echo "$path$file was deleted"
      done
  

  Install inotify-tools with sudo apt install inotify-tools if it is not already installed. After that save the above code to a script file like send.sh, make the script file executable with chmod +x send.sh then run it with bash send.sh and keep it running.

• Make your PHP page save your form data (the number and the message) to a file in the same directory and in one line with a delimiter like | between them... and generate the file name randomly to avoid overwriting the same file. Take the following PHP snippet as an example:

  <?PHP
  //Modify the following three lines.
  //You can dynamically assign your form number to $number and
  //your form message to $message
  
  $number="0096650123456";
  $message="This is a test message.";
  $path_to_directory="/full/path/to/the/directory/to/save/messages/";
  
  
  //Do not modify beloww this line
  
  $content=$number . "|" . $message . "\n";
  $filename=$path_to_directory . rand(0000, 9999) . ".msg";
  
  file_put_contents($filename, $content);