asked on

Restart httpd and named via PHP (without suexec/as nobody)

I need to restart both BIND and Apache from a PHP script that's running as nobody. The following two lines don't work:

echo `/usr/sbin/httpd restart`;
echo `/etc/rc.d/init.d/named restart`;

Anyone?

Aamir Saeed

http://www.phpfreaks.com/apache_manual/page/stopping.html

inxil

ASKER

OK, so I came up with a solution that I think is about as good as it's going to get. First I updated my sudoers file and added the following:

nobody ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /etc/rc.d/init.d/named reload
nobody ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/httpd graceful

Then I updated my PHP script accordingly:

echo `sudo /usr/sbin/httpd graceful`;
echo `sudo /etc/rc.d/init.d/named reload`;

This means that the user nobody can gracefully restart apache and reload BIND's database, which is somewhat insecure, but is acceptable. Does anyone have a better solution?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

hernst42

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SOLUTION

Aamir Saeed

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inxil

ASKER

I feel like I answered the question myself...

inxil

ASKER

I don't mind giving the points to hernst42 and i_m_aamir, but to those of you looking for a similar solution--the method I described works quite well.