Automation of Administrative Tasks on an RHEL Box

[Devarishi Kumar Mahadeva]

Hi All,


Here is a good scenario of  Automation of Administrative Tasks (it was presented 
before me in an interview at a Defense Department, Navy):

Design a Web Interface using PHP (we can use Perl also)  that has fields for:

IP Address, Default Gateway, Subnet Mask, etc. and when the values are submitted 
the Linux Server (RHEL) should be able to process the request and change the 
Network information accordingly and restart the Network Services. (It it 
noteworthy that such a Web Interface is to be used on an Intranet and is for 
testing purpose only, we really do not intend to invite any security 
vulnerabilities by allowing anyone to change the Network Settings.) 

The only point here is how to get a (CGI-)Script (PHP or Perl) be able to 
perform the tasks of an Administrator, i.e. execute commands that only the root 
user or a user with some root privileges can issue.

We can easily pass values to a PHP / Perl or even to a Shell Script program on 
the server.... in /var/www/cgi-bin or /var/www/html directories. But how will it 
run with the root privileges? 

With regards,
 
Devarishi Kumar Mahadeva.

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