execute shell commands as root

Anon

i want to execute a shell command as root from a php in a web server, i want to add a new user on the linux server,
i made system().. and exec() but i haven't permission, of course, how can i made it as root? or there is another way?
thx to all

Anon

Well, you could change it so that your webserver runs as root. That way you could do what you need.

But, don't!!

This is a huge security risk!!

The next best thing you can do is to store details of the work you want done in a file and have a cron job (with root privs) read that file every so often and actually do the jobs.

If that's not good enough, you could create a root service on your server listening at a particular port, and send it the details of the work to do. This would involve a fair amount of programming and you'd have to be certain it was watertight.

In either of these two solutions, you would need to have the program that does the work, check the jobs beforehand to make sure that they're not dodgy. You don't want a hacker laying an egg in there!!

Hint: Go with the second option!

Cheers,

Jack

Anon

i'm prgramming a webmail with cyrus and all i want is add new user's in the web, like hotmail... etc and the onle solution ,that i know, is adduser, there is another solution? in the manual i can't find any imap_function to add new usser's.
tkx

Anon

Hi Alvaro,

The sad fact is you need to have root priviliges to create a system user. There's no way your web server should have those priviliges.

Here's one solution for ya. Store your new user details in a flat file or a database. Now, you could have a root-level program continually-looping in the background, checking this file or database. When it finds (and validates) the new user info it can then create the new user.

It will take a little work, but it's the best I can think of.

Cheers,

Jack

Anon

thx very much Jack it's look a nice option, i'll tell you the result

Anon

You could write a program to do this in just about any language and run it setuid as root. It is far from trivial but that's how programs such as passwd work in the first place.