nginx: can I show output of a shell command on a specific url?

Question

I'm not sure if this is even possible but can I show the stdout of a linux command via webserver?

The command I want to run is echo 'status' | nc localhost 4730 which returns a string with status of the gearman job server.

$echo 'status' | nc localhost 4730
function1      0       0       0
function2      0       0       1

My server's running nginx. I want to open a URL like http://domain.tld/gearman-status and it should return the current status by running that command.

What should I put in the location block of nginx to do that?

location /gearman-status {
  ?
}

Thanks

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 03 '11 at 13:02

4

nginx lacks CGI support so it can't execute any scripts directly. You'll need to setup FastCGI server and call it from nginx by using fastcgi_pass in your location directive. There is example of such FastCGI wrapper in nginx wiki - see this link.

answered Jul 03 '11 at 13:02

AlexD

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Thanks Alex. FastCGI does seem like an overkill for this simple requirement but as the perl script is given on the wiki for this case, I'd go with it. – Mridul Kashatria Jul 03 '11 at 15:34
1

link no longer works (404) – anneb Jan 19 '18 at 15:49

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 03 '11 at 11:41

1

You can just write a small PHP or perl file and put it in the required path. This small file will execute the script or commands you want and print the output. You can use the backquotes `command` to do this.

answered Jul 03 '11 at 11:41

Khaled

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nginx: can I show output of a shell command on a specific url?

2 Answers2