Should I enable shell_exec and how to do it?

[divinelighting]

Recently upgraded Magento to 1.8, and apparently it's cron.php requires shell_exec to run:

http://davidalger.com/development/magento/a-new-breed-of-cron-in-magento-ee-1-13-2/

How do I enable shell_exec (currently using secure custombuild)

 

[scsi]

No you should not. Any programmer that needs shell_exec is a bad programmer.

 

[divinelighting]

Hmmm, that sounds familiar.

It looks like the software is trying to handle the case where shell_exec is disabled, but it is not working:

$isShellDisabled = is_array($disabledFuncs) ? in_array('shell_exec', $disabledFuncs) : true;
$isShellDisabled = (stripos(PHP_OS, 'win') === false) ? $isShellDisabled : true;

try {
if (stripos(PHP_OS, 'win') === false) {
$options = getopt('m::');
if (isset($options['m'])) {
if ($options['m'] == 'always') {
$cronMode = 'always';
} elseif ($options['m'] == 'default') {
$cronMode = 'default';
} else {
Mage::throwException('Unrecognized cron mode was defined');
}
} else if (!$isShellDisabled) {
$fileName = basename(__FILE__);
$baseDir = dirname(__FILE__);
shell_exec("/bin/sh $baseDir/cron.sh $fileName -mdefault 1 > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
shell_exec("/bin/sh $baseDir/cron.sh $fileName -malways 1 > /dev/null 2>&1 &");
exit;
}
}

Mage::getConfig()->init()->loadEventObservers('crontab');
Mage::app()->addEventArea('crontab');
if ($isShellDisabled) {
Mage::dispatchEvent('always');
Mage::dispatchEvent('default');
} else {
Mage::dispatchEvent($cronMode);
}
} catch (Exception $e) {
Mage:rintException($e);
exit(1);
}