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PHP - few things without root access

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# 1  
Old 04-01-2005
PHP - few things without root access
Helo, everybody !
I want to set up a web server. To make my work a little bit easyer, I surfed the internet to see how other web sites/servers are configured, and a few questions joined my mind (as I've never done a web server). So, my main question is:
- How can I add some users from a web page, without setting apache to run as root ?.

I guess that you agree with me when I say that it's realy stupid to run a web server as root. Anyway, what I realy want is not only that... I want the script that I'll create to add a user, and to create a public_html directory in the user's home directory, and also copy into that directory a PHP script (phpMyAdmin). Also, after I'm doing this, I want to set in the /etc/ftpchroot file the user name...

So, shortly, this is what I want to do. How can I do it, without configuring apache to use root as the default user, and without changing the file atributes (for ftpchroot and other files that I wouldn't like to modify) ? Any sugestions ? Any FM to read Smilie ? Or some tutorials... or just a few words to get the ideea...
I'll appreciate any kind of help.
Thanks !
# 2  
Old 04-01-2005
i, myself, would never create an automatic user creation script from a webpage but since you asked for ideas ...

you can have the users fill a form that corresponds to the /etc/passwd fields and then have a background job --- running as root --- look at the form, create the accounts, and zero out the form again ...

*** make sure your script sets the uid and gid as well as do sanity checks on the information so you don't automatically give somebody full access to your server without knowing who they are ...
# 3  
Old 04-01-2005
Hi !
Well... it sounds simple enough... Thanks for the ideea.
Bye !
# 4  
Old 04-05-2005
If, on Linux, you can try the newusers utility:

Code:
NAME
       newusers - update and create new users in batch

SYNOPSIS
       newusers [new_users]

DESCRIPTION
       newusers  reads  a file of user name and cleartext password pairs and uses
       this information to update a group of existing  users  or  to  create  new
       users.  Each line is in the same format as the standard password file (see
       passwd(5)) with the following exceptions.

       pw_passwd This field will be encrypted and used as the new  value  of  the
                 encrypted password.

       pw_age    This  field  will  be  ignored  for shadow passwords if the user
                 already exists.

       pw_gid    This field may be the name of an existing group, in  which  case
                 the  named  user  will  be added as a member.  If a non-existent
                 numerical group is given, a new group  will  be  created  having
                 this number.

       pw_dir    This  field  will  be checked for existence as a directory and a
                 new directory with the same name will be created if it does  not
                 already exist.  The ownership of the directory will be set to be
                 that of the user being created or updated.

(more)

There are many important web applications where accounts need to be created on a server, certainly if you are selling inexpensive web hosting with shell access, mail accounts, etc.
# 5  
Old 04-06-2005
Hi !
Well... if I'll not find another solution in the next few days... I'll use Linux on my server.
Thanks for your hint !
Bye !
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