[PHP] web based admin - was: Re: [PHP] Restart Apache with PHP???

2003-09-05 Thread Raditha Dissanayake
You are right anil,

I think we should collectively discourage people from attempting this 
sort of this. I am no fan of webmin, cpanel or any of the other 
vhost/admin stuff but at least they are likely to be more secure than 
what can be scratched together in a hurry.

Anil Kumar K. wrote:

Writing something like this as part of a Web application is definitely a 
bad idea.

The requirement is more like that of a remote administration system and
Webmin (http://www.webmin.com/) cleanly and safely fits the bill. 
Webmin can actually do more than just restarting Apache. But it 
can be configured to do only that. 

best regards.
  Anil
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Jason Sheets wrote:

 

More safely maybe, but even that solution could be exploited somewhat 
easily.  The script that writes the file would be better off as a CGI 
than executed through the Apache module, this would allow you to 
restrict write access to the directory where the file that triggers the 
restart is stored to the owner of the script, you could then further 
restrict access to this script through .htccess or other means.  If you 
make a file trigger a cronned job to restart the server if you are using 
mod_php the directory must be writable to the user the web server runs 
as which means that anyone who can execute php code through the 
webserver can trigger a server restart by writing the file, you could 
even cron it to write the file every  minute effectively shutting the 
server down (whether it be web or the actual system itself).

Doing something like this takes a lot of thought, it can be made 
difficult to exploit but you need to do more than just make a cron 
pickup a file, excellent starting place though.

Jason



--
http://www.raditha.com/php/progress.php
A progress bar for PHP file uploads.
--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php


Re: [PHP] Restart Apache with PHP???

2003-09-04 Thread Anil Kumar K.

Writing something like this as part of a Web application is definitely a 
bad idea.

The requirement is more like that of a remote administration system and
Webmin (http://www.webmin.com/) cleanly and safely fits the bill. 
Webmin can actually do more than just restarting Apache. But it 
can be configured to do only that. 

best regards.
   Anil

On Wed, 3 Sep 2003, Jason Sheets wrote:

 More safely maybe, but even that solution could be exploited somewhat 
 easily.  The script that writes the file would be better off as a CGI 
 than executed through the Apache module, this would allow you to 
 restrict write access to the directory where the file that triggers the 
 restart is stored to the owner of the script, you could then further 
 restrict access to this script through .htccess or other means.  If you 
 make a file trigger a cronned job to restart the server if you are using 
 mod_php the directory must be writable to the user the web server runs 
 as which means that anyone who can execute php code through the 
 webserver can trigger a server restart by writing the file, you could 
 even cron it to write the file every  minute effectively shutting the 
 server down (whether it be web or the actual system itself).
 
 Doing something like this takes a lot of thought, it can be made 
 difficult to exploit but you need to do more than just make a cron 
 pickup a file, excellent starting place though.
 
 Jason
 
 Dan Anderson wrote:
 
 Search the archives.  Somebody wanted to restart their server using a
 web page, and a clever solution was pointed out.  By creating a script
 that monitored for a particular file in temp and restarted the server if
 it existed it, and cronning it for every minute, they could do it safely
 and securely.
 
 -Dan
 
 On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 12:19, Joe Harman wrote:
   
 
 Hey guys  gals... 
 
 Is there a way to restart Apache with a PHP command?
 
 
 
 Joe Harman
 
  
 
 
 
   
 
 

-- 
Linuxense Information Systems Pvt. Ltd., Trivandrum, India
http://www.linuxense.com/

-- 
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php



Re: [PHP] Restart Apache with PHP???

2003-09-03 Thread Jason Sheets
More safely maybe, but even that solution could be exploited somewhat 
easily.  The script that writes the file would be better off as a CGI 
than executed through the Apache module, this would allow you to 
restrict write access to the directory where the file that triggers the 
restart is stored to the owner of the script, you could then further 
restrict access to this script through .htccess or other means.  If you 
make a file trigger a cronned job to restart the server if you are using 
mod_php the directory must be writable to the user the web server runs 
as which means that anyone who can execute php code through the 
webserver can trigger a server restart by writing the file, you could 
even cron it to write the file every  minute effectively shutting the 
server down (whether it be web or the actual system itself).

Doing something like this takes a lot of thought, it can be made 
difficult to exploit but you need to do more than just make a cron 
pickup a file, excellent starting place though.

Jason

Dan Anderson wrote:

Search the archives.  Somebody wanted to restart their server using a
web page, and a clever solution was pointed out.  By creating a script
that monitored for a particular file in temp and restarted the server if
it existed it, and cronning it for every minute, they could do it safely
and securely.
-Dan

On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 12:19, Joe Harman wrote:
 

Hey guys  gals... 

Is there a way to restart Apache with a PHP command?



Joe Harman

   

 

--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php


[PHP] Restart Apache with PHP???

2003-09-02 Thread Joe Harman
Hey guys  gals... 

Is there a way to restart Apache with a PHP command?



Joe Harman

 

-- 
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php



Re: [PHP] Restart Apache with PHP???

2003-09-02 Thread Raditha Dissanayake
hi,

There isn't a specific PHP api for this. But you can execute shell 
commands through various mechanisms included exec, backticks etc etc. 
All of this is deadly dangerous of course because you need root privileges.

Joe Harman wrote:

Hey guys  gals... 

Is there a way to restart Apache with a PHP command?



Joe Harman



 



--
http://www.raditha.com/php/progress.php
A progress bar for PHP file uploads.
--
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php


Re: [PHP] Restart Apache with PHP???

2003-09-02 Thread Dan Anderson
Search the archives.  Somebody wanted to restart their server using a
web page, and a clever solution was pointed out.  By creating a script
that monitored for a particular file in temp and restarted the server if
it existed it, and cronning it for every minute, they could do it safely
and securely.

-Dan

On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 12:19, Joe Harman wrote:
 Hey guys  gals... 
 
 Is there a way to restart Apache with a PHP command?
 
 
 
 Joe Harman
 
  

-- 
PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/)
To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php