Working as root while Apache is running; how much a risk?

[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Fr, den 09.07.2004 schrieb Michael Sullivan um 20:41:
> When I issue a "ps -ef | grep httpd" I get:
> 
> [root at bullet root]# ps -ef | grep httpd
> root      1938     1  0 13:06 ?        00:00:03 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2063  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2064  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2065  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2066  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2067  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2068  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2069  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> apache    2070  1938  0 13:06 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
> root      2419  2367  0 13:36 pts/1    00:00:00 grep httpd
> 
> How do I fix this?  I've tried doing "su apache", but it tells me that
> the account is not available....

What do you want to fix?! There is nothing to fix! Didn't you understand
what all the others already explained you about the master process -
running as user root - and the forked worker processes - running as
unprivileged user apache - which do the real communication with clients.

You can't su to user apache, because has no login shell:

apache:x:48:48:Apache:/var/www:/sbin/nologin

Alexander
  

-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG key 1024D/ED695653 1999-07-13
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 2 (Tettnang) on Athlon CPU kernel 2.6.6-1.435.2.3 
Serendipity 20:49:19 up 2 days, 2:57, load average: 0.27, 0.37, 0.39 
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