I cannot tell you how dangerous this is.

Probably, the best way would be to write a request into a database that has the specific required changes, then have a root daemon vet the changes then fork a child that becomes the requested user. You've got to have an intermediate like that so that you don't have a setuid root web process, which opens up many cans of worms.

Even then, how are you authenticating the user to the web process? I can't imagine having a low-privileged user temporarily have authentication credentials to pass on to the database either. Ugh.

Really, why are you doing this from the web?

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
Be sure to read my standard disclaimer if this is a reply.

In reply to •Re: Doing things as a different user by merlyn
in thread Doing things as a different user by aufflick

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