disable the 'exec' function

[furma]

How do I disable the 'exec' function in my linux php server?

It's important in order to prevent users from planting PHP browsers on their shell account.

[bradgrafelman]

Check in the PHP config file, you will find (or can add) this:

; This directive allows you to disable certain functions for security reasons.
; It receives a comma-delimited list of function names. This directive is
; NOT affected by whether Safe Mode is turned On or Off.
disable_functions =

NOTE: If you're trying to prevent users from running commands/external programs, you might look into disable additional functions such as [man]system[/man], [man]passthru[/man], and so on. Another alternative you can look into is safe_mode.