In Linux, each user you create using useradd has a home direcotry, something like /home/user.

In /etc/passwd there is an "apache" user.

I am running Apache and when the user enters a number in a web page in the browser, a CGI script (Perl) is executed and this is supposed to scp a file from a remote server.

But if I cannot su apache, how can I scp the file. I need to create the private and public keys.

What do you mean by "I cannot su apache"? As root you should be
able to do that; of course if nobody has a shell of false the
login won't last long ...


Cheers,
Tink

I don't fully understand why you want to run an scp from a cgi-script, I would suggest that you be sure to have signifcant security in place for this task.

The web server should already be running as the apache user, so you do not need to su to apache. You can use the -i option with scp (and ssh) to point to the private key. If you generate your keys and then put the private key in a safe place that the user of the web server (apache) can access, then point to that file in your cgi script using the -i option, it should be able to copy the necessary files.

Thanks for suggesting the -i option. Let me try that out.

The story goes like this: A user has an ID which corresponds to the name of a text file in server 1.

Another server 2 running Apache, provides a web page for the user to enter the ID, and this triggers a script to copy that text file from the remote server, and then process it.

So, the user Apache needs to secure copy the file without entering passwords and then process it.

Thanks, this works.

Your welcome. Glad to help.