getting the PHP user or group?

zeb

Is there a way for PHP to get the user or group that PHP (or apache) is operating as? From either a function or a superglobal? I would like to do this dynamically, so i am trying to write it into a script.

LordShryku

$_ENV['USER']

zeb

hmmm... that's not available on my local development machine... but it is available on one of two other servers I work with... is that the only way?

LordShryku

Do a print_r($_ENV) or phpinfo(). I know there's another one, and it should be in there.

zeb

I don't see anything else in the $GLOBALS array. Is there possibly a function that I can use to get that, or maybe a pipe into the shell. It's a one time thing (for an installer), so it won't be called more than once.

LordShryku

Looks like it works on the Linux build, but not Windows. So, you can try [man]get_current_user[/man], but if it's started as a Windows system service, that'll only output SYSTEM.

zeb

I looked into that function... it only gives the name of the owner of the current running script, not the user that PHP is running as. In most cases, on a production machine, the owner of the script would be the FTP user who uploaded the file, and the FTP user is seldom the same as the PHP user.

Sgarissta

`whoami`

Of course this will only work on a linux box...I couldn't tell you the equivelant on windows.

zeb

Thanks! - of course not all servers enable popen, but that gets me a step closer.