I am writing a simple web upload script. The goal is to upload a file using php, and then calling a java program to process this file. I have done the work for uploading the file, but I cannot get a java program to be successfully run from within the php script. I have tried exec(), shell_exec(), and system() with no results. For the command, I have used "java Test", "java < directory /Test", "/usr/bin/java < directory /Test", I have even set up the application as a jar file with no results. The actual line of code I have used is: echo shell_exec("java Test"); Usually there is no output. However, if I have just shell_exec("java"), then the last line of the help from java ("show splash screen with specified image") is displayed, which shows that the command has been executed. If I use, for example, shell_exec("whoami") I get "nobody" returned, which is correct. The only thing the java file does is create a file so that I can see that the application has been successfully run (the application runs successfully if I run it on the command line). I have set the permissions for the java file to 777 to rule out any possibility of permission errors. I have been struggling with this for a while trying all sorts of options with no results - the file is never created (the file is created with an absolute path so it's not being created and I just can't find the file). Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks.