Running libreoffice from php exec()

Question

I have installed libreoffice headless on a freebsd-server with apache in order to convert documents programmatically (e.g. odt->pdf). It works from the command line! But my goal is to be able to do it from php. This demands that the web-user (www) can run libreoffice. But it cannot.

When running libreoffice as my own user, I get:

%libreoffice --headless -convert-to pdf Litteraturundervisningogit.doc
javaPathHelper: not found #This should not be a problem, says people on the net.
convert /usr/home/bundsgaard.net/www/jeppe/foredrag/Litteraturundervisningogit.doc ->
 /usr/home/bundsgaard.net/www/jeppe/foredrag/Litteraturundervisningogit.pdf using writer_pdf_Export
%

If I try the same command as root, it does not work. The same is the problem with the www-user from php:

sp# libreoffice --headless -convert-to pdf Litteraturundervisningogit.doc
javaPathHelper: not found
sp#

The problem is that I do not get any information from libreoffice, thus I don't know why libreoffice does not want to run as other users than my own.

My question is: How do I give the www-user permission to run libreoffice via exec() in php?

Answer 1

I managed to fix this issue with a quick export HOME=/tmp before running the convert command, this gives libreoffice somewhere writable to work it's magic.