I've tried to search a lot around the web for this question, to no avail. <\p>

Currently I'm building a perl script that needs to do a specific job for each line in some database. The database contains several arguements including a "user" field. The script runs as root, and in each line iteration in the db, it will need to switch to the user provided and operate as the user, finishing the round and exiting back to root and then again, running as a different user. <\p>

So far I've tried: <\p>

using POSIX::setuid($User) in order to switch to the user within the same script, meaning:<\p><code>while (my $line = <$DB>) .. some code .. POSIX::setuid($User); #switch to user ... do stuff POSIX::setuid(0); #return to root <\code>

But this solution didn't work so well, after changing once it was stuck in this user through all iterations of the loop, and couldn't return to root, which is obviously logical because it doesn't have the correct permissions.<\p>

Since this didn't work, I thought to myself maybe I should split the job into 2 scripts. One script will run as root, whereas the other script will be called to by root in the first script and then use POSIX::setuid. I thought, that maybe because it's a subproc\shell it'll just return itself back to root once the job is done on the second script, but it doesn't work as well... I'm kinda out of ideas, anything you guys think'll help?<\p>

ANOTHER THING: I know this is probably incorrect, so that's why I ask this around... please keep mean comments off or stuff like "you don't know what you're doing", if I did I wouldn't have asked... I basically look for a safe way to change the eid\uid of the SECOND SCRIPT only and keep root as the user for the main one... is there a way for that? Thanks! <\p>

In reply to Running a perl script with root, changing to another user and then back to root? by morthed

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