37

I want to launch a bash script when a button is pressed on a website. This is my first attempt:

<button type="button" onclick="/path/to/name.sh">Click Me!</button>

But no luck. Any suggestions?

dukevin
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4 Answers4

35

As stated by Luke you need to use a server side language, like php. This is a really simple php example:

<?php
if ($_GET['run']) {
  # This code will run if ?run=true is set.
  exec("/path/to/name.sh");
}
?>

<!-- This link will add ?run=true to your URL, myfilename.php?run=true -->
<a href="?run=true">Click Me!</a>

Save this as myfilename.php and place it on a machine with a web server with php installed. The same thing can be accomplished with asp, java, ruby, python, ...

Community
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nsg
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    This answer works on my Ubuntu desktop with apache2 and php5 installed. Following is some additional information to help better understand this answer: 1. "myfilename.php" may be placed under the web server's root directory (DocumentRoot) which usually is "/var/www". 2. "myfilename.php" contains the above code, plus other HTML code. 3. The web client uses "/myfilename.php" as the HTTP address. – jonathanzh Jun 18 '15 at 01:12
  • we don't php installed can it possible any other way like javascript. or without php install run this script. – xyz_scala Aug 13 '20 at 07:01
  • Shell can also be a server-sided language. Why not just `case "${REQUEST_METHOD:-}/${QUERY_STRING:-}" in (GET/run=true) /path/to/name.sh;; esac`? Then let web server software call this, I guess. –  Nov 03 '21 at 01:12
12

This is really just an expansion of BBB's answer which lead to to get my experiment working.

This script will simply create a file /tmp/testfile when you click on the button that says "Open Script".

This requires 3 files.

  1. The actual HTML Website with a button.
  2. A php script which executes the script
  3. A Script

The File Tree:

root@test:/var/www/html# tree testscript/
testscript/
├── index.html
├── testexec.php
└── test.sh

1. The main WebPage:

root@test:/var/www/html# cat testscript/index.html
<form action="/testscript/testexec.php">
    <input type="submit" value="Open Script">
</form>

2. The PHP Page that runs the script and redirects back to the main page:

root@test:/var/www/html# cat testscript/testexec.php
<?php
shell_exec("/var/www/html/testscript/test.sh");
header('Location: http://192.168.1.222/testscript/index.html?success=true');
?>

3. The Script :

root@test:/var/www/html# cat testscript/test.sh

#!/bin/bash

touch /tmp/testfile
FreeSoftwareServers
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7

PHP is likely the easiest.

Just make a file script.php that contains <?php shell_exec("yourscript.sh"); ?> and send anybody who clicks the button to that destination. You can return the user to the original page with header:

<?php
shell_exec("yourscript.sh");
header('Location: http://www.website.com/page?success=true');
?>

Reference: http://php.net/manual/en/function.shell-exec.php

BBB
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6

This is how it look like in pure bash

cat /usr/lib/cgi-bin/index.cgi

#!/bin/bash
echo Content-type: text/html
echo ""
## make POST and GET stings
## as bash variables available
if [ ! -z $CONTENT_LENGTH ] && [ "$CONTENT_LENGTH" -gt 0 ] && [ $CONTENT_TYPE != "multipart/form-data" ]; then
read -n $CONTENT_LENGTH POST_STRING <&0
eval `echo "${POST_STRING//;}"|tr '&' ';'`
fi
eval `echo "${QUERY_STRING//;}"|tr '&' ';'`

echo  "<!DOCTYPE html>"
echo  "<html>"
echo  "<head>"
echo  "</head>"

if [[ "$vote" = "a" ]];then
echo "you pressed A"
  sudo /usr/local/bin/run_a.sh
elif [[ "$vote" = "b" ]];then
echo "you pressed B"
  sudo /usr/local/bin/run_b.sh
fi

echo  "<body>"
echo  "<div id=\"content-container\">"
echo  "<div id=\"content-container-center\">"
echo  "<form id=\"choice\" name='form' method=\"POST\" action=\"/\">"
echo  "<button id=\"a\" type=\"submit\" name=\"vote\" class=\"a\" value=\"a\">A</button>"
echo  "<button id=\"b\" type=\"submit\" name=\"vote\" class=\"b\" value=\"b\">B</button>"
echo  "</form>"
echo  "<div id=\"tip\">"
echo  "</div>"
echo  "</div>"
echo  "</div>"
echo  "</div>"
echo  "</body>"
echo  "</html>"

Build with https://github.com/tinoschroeter/bash_on_steroids

Tino Schröter
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