Running PhantomJS with exec() or shell_exec PHP and grab it results may lead you into several headache problems. Several web that talking how to run phantomjs in PHP just send me into fail results. I will show you several pitfalls for instance, here a small scripts to run PhantomJS :

test.php :

Running this php scripts through commandline using PHP CLI will give success page! But, not if you execute this script through browser (eg: Firefox, Chrome, IE). Running this scripts with Apache2 permission give you never ending loading / loop pages.

When you check apache2 error log with “tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log”, you will see :

Why this “cannot connect to X server :0” show up?

PhantomJS need Virtualframebuffer to run. You should run PhantomJS in virtualframebufer. You need XVFB installed in your Ubuntu :

Now, let change your scripts into :

test.php :

It’s should run, but not yet. You still got error here. Because apache2 run everything with “www-data” and it’s not have permission to execute with another user environment. So, another tricks is run it by bash script and execute from PHP. For instance :

test.sh (chmod +x to make it executable) :

test.php :

You will got same error here. Why? Because bash script still running www-data to run phantomjs. Damn! So, what the solution?

There are two solution here.

First solution
You should add “xhost + ” before running everything.

Now, when you run “test.php” which execute “test.sh”, apache2 host will allowed and run PhantomJS without errors. But, I don’t recommend this solution since there may security leaks when adding xhost +. All risk is in your fingers. 🙂

The second solution ?
This is what recommended by me. You can run xvfb first by :

And execute from shell_exec() php by :

I have spend a few hours to figure out how to run phantomjs successfully with PHP. Now, I share to you how to make it works! 🙂

Updated!
We want to run Xvfb when system start. So, create “/etc/init.d/xvfb” :

Don’t forget to register it by :

Reboot your Ubuntu or you can start by “sudo service xvfb start” to start XVFB daemon. Next, check if Xvfb running by “ps aux | grep Xvfb”. Then you can pointing Xvfb into DISPLAY=:99 from your PHP.