MySQL Password Security

[Anon]

I have a WWW server with a thousand users - all with /~blah/ directories. I need to allow MySQL access through perl/php3, but am having problems thinking of a way to allow for secure access to MySQL passwords. For instance: the www server runs as user www. The file containing the passwords must be readable by the web server (user www,) but since users can run scripts it is possible to directly access the file and read the plaintext passwords out of it. Any help would be greatly appreciated - a novel way to keep out users, or whatever!

[Anon]

Search for "sudo" on freshmeat.net.

I use it to change users passwords from a web page. You can simply allow access to your password file ONLY for user www, and you need another password to access it.

ie: sudo cat /etc/passwd

It will then prompt you for a password. If the password matches, it lets you read that file. Hope this helps.