Executing a php script located on server via ajax

Question

I have a website hosted on server, now what I want is to run a .php script (Also located on the same server) when someone presses the submit button in the website.

Following is the ajax code

$.ajax({url: "/test.php",
 success: function(response){
 console.log("Success",response);
 }
 });

My test.php consists of

<?php
//exec('sudo -u www-data python /var/www/html/test.py');
echo "PHP Script Ran";
mkdir("/var/www/html/test", 0700);
?>

When I navigate to ip_address/test.php, the echo message is displayed correctly but the mkdir command doesn't seem to be executed as there is no folder created in my server's directory.

Also I want to know, how can I run this test.php script when someone presses the submit button in my website.

The Javascript code is

var $ = jQuery;
var timestamp = Number(new Date());
var form = document.querySelector("form");
var database = firebase.database();
form.addEventListener("submit", function(event) {
 var ary = $(form).serializeArray();
 var obj = {};
 for (var a = 0; a < ary.length; a++) obj[ary[a].name] = ary[a].value;
 console.log("JSON",obj);
 firebase.database().ref('users/' + timestamp).set(obj);
 database.ref('users/' + timestamp).once('value').then(function(snapshot) {
 console.log("Received value",snapshot.val());
 $.ajax({
 url: "/test.php",
 success: function(response){
 console.log("Success",response);
 }
 });
 });
});

Any help on this would be much appreciated. Thanks

• Jai: event.preventDefault(); is missing to stop the form submission.
• harshithdwivedi: @Jai so I added this after form.addEventListener("submit", function(event) {event.preventDefault(); ..... but how do I execute the php script now? After getting it from ajax
• gior91: It seems like a permission problem: probably the script test.php hasn't the permission to add that folder. There is also the possibility that the path /var/www/html doesn't exist on the remote server. These are my ideas...

Answer 1

In this case it's recommended to use mkdir within try...catch function and capture the error if it's the case.

On the other hand mkidr will return a boolean value: true if the directory creation was successful or false in the case of a failure.

1.version

try {
 mkdir("/var/www/html/test", 0700, true);
} catch ($ex Exception) {
 echo $ex->getMessage();
}

2.version

if (!mkdir("/var/www/html/test", 0700, true)) {
 echo 'Failed to create folder...';
}

If mkdir cannot create the folder two things you need to check: if the folder exist and if it has the right permissions. By this i mean if the user group is set to apache (because apache, through web browser is executing the mkdir command) and second if apache (www-data) has the necessary permissions to execute this command.

• harshithdwivedi: Ok, so I did this and the response that I get is "Failed to create folder.." so probably some permission issues, I'll have a look at that Just one more thing, the command alert(response); executes the script on my server? I am a bit new to this so this part wan't clear to me.
• Endre Simo: it't a javascript action, it has nothing to do with server side. please check my edited answer.
• harshithdwivedi: Thanks, it works :) Had to use this guide to set the correct permissions http://fideloper.com/user-group-permissions-chmod-apache

Answer 2

Revise your php.ini in the server, the tag disable_functions = "..." and making sure that mkdir not this included in the list.