pexpect with apache

Tue Oct 17 23:15:36 EDT 2006

Hi all.  I try not to post until I am stuck in hole with no way out.  I
fought with this for several hours, and am currently in the hole.

I'm doing a proof of concept for creating afp shares dynamically
through a web interface from a client machine.  I use a bit of php to
setup a simple form, and then have the php execute my python script on
the server.  The python script tries to 'su' to root to create the
share, create dirs, set perms, etc

The python script alone works fine as 'www'.  I can become 'www',  run
it from the command line and the share is made.  But when I try to have
the web server execute it, I continually get a password failure.  I'm
positive the password is correct.

Any ideas?

~Sean D

~~~~~~~~~~~test.py
#! /usr/bin/env python

import commands, os, P, pexpect

sharename = sys.argv[1]

root = "/Users/Shared"
sharepath = os.path.join(root, sharename)
password = P.P()

COMMAND_PROMPT = '[$%#]'
child = pexpect.spawn('su')
i = child.expect([pexpect.TIMEOUT, '[Pp]assword:'], timeout=1)
child.sendline(password.Decrypt(password.sean))

i = child.expect (['su: Sorry', COMMAND_PROMPT])

if i == 0:
	print 'Password not accepted'
	sys.exit(1)
else:
	print "Making dir: %s" % sharepath
	child.sendline("mkdir %s" % sharepath)
	i = child.expect([pexpect.TIMEOUT, COMMAND_PROMPT] ,timeout=1)
	print "Setting group to 'audio'"
	child.sendline("chgrp audio %s" % sharepath)
	i = child.expect([pexpect.TIMEOUT, COMMAND_PROMPT] ,timeout=1)
	print "setting owner to 'audio01'"
	child.sendline("chown audio01 %s" % sharepath)
	i = child.expect([pexpect.TIMEOUT, COMMAND_PROMPT] ,timeout=1)
	print "Opening permissions"
	child.sendline("chmod 777 %s" % sharepath)
	i = child.expect([pexpect.TIMEOUT, COMMAND_PROMPT] ,timeout=1)
	print "sharing -a %s -s 100" % sharepath
	child.sendline("sharing -a %s -s 100" % sharepath)
	i = child.expect([pexpect.TIMEOUT, COMMAND_PROMPT] ,timeout=1)
	sys.exit(0)

~~~~~~~~~~~test.php
<html>
<body>
<?php

if (isset($_GET['sharename'])) {
	$last_line = system("/Users/Shared/test.py {$_GET['sharename']}",
$retval);
	if ($retval == 0) {
		echo "<br><h2>Mount afp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/{$_GET['sharename']}</h2>";
	} else {
		echo "<br><h2>Failed creating share!</h2>";
	}
} else {

	echo "<form action='test.php'>";
	echo "<table>";
	echo "<td>Name of share:</td><td><input type='text'
name='sharename'></td>";
	echo "</table></form>";
}

?>
</body>
</html>