Drush 8 ERROR: can't find php yet comparable Drush 7 is clean

[karunadev]

Initially here I asked for help for a Drush 8 install giving me ERROR: can't find php : http://drupal.stackexchange.com/questions/218569/drush-8-error-cant-find-php-yet-comparable-drush-7-is-clean

Since then I have edited it, with a comparison of Drush 7. It appears to be that documented Drush 7 functionality is not present in Drush 8.

On a new machine with CPanel Easy Apache 4 with Drush 8:

Installed Drush for all users via Composer as per http://www.drush.org/en/master/install-alternative/

[/usr/local/bin]# drush
ERROR: can't find php.

In /usr/local/bin/error_log and /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/error_log:

[23-Oct-2016 03:03:23 UTC] PHP Warning:  exec() has been disabled for security reasons in /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/includes/startup.inc on line 32
[23-Oct-2016 03:03:23 UTC] PHP Warning:  Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/includes/startup.inc on line 33

Tried setting up drush.ini in various locations including both /etc/drush and /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/:

/etc/drush/drush.ini contains and /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/drush.ini both contain:

disable_functions =

What I am finding on 'drush/includes/startup.inc' line 32 is an exec() that helps to determine the environment; which appears not to take into account drush.ini etc.

I can get Drush 8 to run, only when I alter in the CPanel UI the php.ini to remove exec from the disable_functions list. In which case I receive:

[~]# drush status
 PHP executable         :  /usr/bin/php-cli
 PHP configuration      :  /opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/etc/php.ini /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/drush.ini /etc/drush/drush.ini
 PHP OS                 :  Linux
 Drush script           :  /opt/drush-8.x/vendor/drush/drush/drush.php
 Drush version          :  8.1.6
 Drush temp directory   :  /tmp
 Drush configuration    :
 Drush alias files      :

What is odd is that drush status reports php.ini to be /opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/etc/php.ini, however this file has

disable_functions =

In Easy Apache 4, the actual php.ini that is updated when the UI is updated is:

[/]# ls -la ./opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/etc/php.d/local.ini
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 60580 Oct 22 22:43 ./opt/cpanel/ea-php70/root/etc/php.d/local.ini

Out of curiosity I have tried the same approach with an older server using the same instructions. I had to use the older Drush 7.* version. This worked just fine.

-bash-4.1# drush status
exec() has been disabled for security reasons preflight.inc:296      [warning]
exec() has been disabled for security reasons preflight.inc:296        [warning]
exec() has been disabled for security reasons preflight.inc:296        [warning]
 PHP executable         :  /usr/bin/php-cli
 PHP configuration      :  /usr/local/lib/php.ini
 PHP OS                 :  Linux
 Drush script           :  /opt/drush-7.x/vendor/drush/drush/drush.php
 Drush version          :  7.4.0
 Drush temp directory   :  /tmp
 Drush configuration    :
 Drush alias files      :

Instead of "ERROR: can't find php.", all it reports is the exec() warning.

With Drush 7, implementing the example.drush.ini file and uncommenting the 'disable_functions =' results in a clean status for Drush 7.

-bash-4.1# drush status
 PHP executable         :  /usr/bin/php-cli
 PHP configuration      :  /usr/local/lib/php.ini /opt/drush-7.x/vendor/drush/drush/drush.ini
 PHP OS                 :  Linux
 Drush script           :  /opt/drush-7.x/vendor/drush/drush/drush.php
 Drush version          :  7.4.0
 Drush temp directory   :  /tmp
 Drush configuration    :
 Drush alias files      :

It looks to me like Drush 8 is less functional than Drush 7.

I would like to run Drush 8 while maintaining disable_functions = show_source, system, passthru, exec, popen, proc_open for my webserver php.ini configuration; with Drush 8.

Kind Regards
Dave