Is it possible to call Shell commands (e.g for converting images ) from Laravel controller? If yes then how. I have searched on internet. Nothing seems relevant.
You can use the Process component provided by Symfony: http://symfony.com/doc/current/components/process.html
The component is used by Laravel itself, so it can be loaded directly.
If you use it(instead of php's exec() function), you'll be able to unit test the code that calls shell commands.
exec()