Cgi-bin scripts get run without a user?

Question

I'm running a binary that requires a license key to reside in the user's home directory. I'm making a cgi script that calls upon this binary and everything is happy when I execute the script from the command line using sudo -u www-data binary. However, when I run the cgi script from the web, the binary can't find the license key.

The apache error log states: License key "(null)/.key" not found., referer:

Does this mean that cgi scripts are executed without any user attached for security reasons? And how can I make cgi scripts be run as www-data so the binary knows to look in the appropriate home directory? Unfortunately, There is no command line flag to specify the key location.

Answer 1

Take a look at suexec for apache2, with that, you'll be able to run cgi as a specified user.