opendir as root

juschillinnow

I've seen some post but nothing that answers my question.

Is there a way to open and display a dir files as root?

such as if I wanted to list the ssh keys:
/root/.ssh/

Only root has this privilege but can php open and display the results by running itself as root?

Of course I don't always want to do this (that would be suicide) but, if I wanted one particular script to do it, is it possible and what would it take.

I know perl has a module for doing something like this where is runs itself as the root user when called.

I suppose I could possible write a short C++ file that would open a read the contents and then call that exe from php.

Am I looking at big security flaws here?

planetsim

Allowing any script to run as root is suicide.

Anyway i dont think its possible for a PHP Script to run as root.

juschillinnow

let me explain a little better what I want to do and then any suggestions....

I have a directory /etc/mail/
That only root has permission to access.

I have a web script located in /var/www/
that obviously could not open the directory /etc/mail/

Is it possible to chmod on the directory for a brief second while get the directory list?

Again, I suppose the script would have to be running as root. Am I correct in saying this?

TruckStuff

Your are saying it corretly, by planetSim is correct. Running any web-accessible script as root is asking for trouble. Trying to change premissions in the middle of a script is even worse. Consider the scenario of a script that changes permissions of a folder twice. All a malicious user has to do is stop the script in mid-execution and, oops, now your permissions are shot.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? People here will be glad to help you identify an alternate solution.

juschillinnow

Ok, here's the long of it:

I am running asterisk (PBX Software) and it has a voicemail directory, let's say it's located at /etc/voicemail/

And then it has a bunch of different subdirectories.

I then have a web page, let's say, http://localhost/voicemail.php

The user uses voicemail.php to login, I verify that they exist, and then I need to show them their voicemail.

Problem:

/etc/voicemail/ cannot be accessed by web page. Give the error: Warning: opendir(/etc/voicemail/): failed to open dir: Permission denied in /var/www/voicemail.php on line 45

I do not want to change permission on the voicemail directory because people would like to know that their voicemail is confidential.

There is a perl script for this, but we are trying to migrate everything over to PHP (as much as possible).

So I need a way to list the voicemail.wav files inside of /etc/voicemail/ without comprimising security (or at least I would like to think I'm not).

Can I do this with cURL or something.

If you still dont' understand, let me know. I'll be more than happy to give any more missing puzzle pieces.

You keep saying that it is a security issue. Perhaps you can tell me how to do it and let the senior programmer decide whether he wants to do it or not.

juschillinnow

Here's what I did. Any notable security flaws would be greatly appreciated:

run.exe:
#include<stdio.h>
#include<unistd.h>
#define RUN_CMD "/etc/readmail.php"

int main(){
setreuid(geteuid(),geteuid());
system(RUN_CMD);
return(1);
}

readmail.php
<?
if($handle = opendir("/etc/voicemail/")){
while(false !== ($file = readdir($handle))){
echo "$file\n";
}
}
?>

voicemail.php
<?
system("/etc/run",$test);
echo $test;
?>

I call readmail.php from run.exe.

I call run.exe from my webpage voicemail.php

It prints out ok.

Any notable flaws? Any security breaches?