Issue with the "system" command

[cheguvera]

Hi All,

I have a question about the system command.

If I run some OS command from Perl script like ,

system("java -user ABCD -pass XYZ -deb") ;

The command I am running will execute, thats fine. But while the command is running, if some other user on the Unix box gives command like "ps -aef", he can see the details of the command I am running.

Is it possible to hide that command details appearing on the process details ??

Please suggest some way out.

Thanks and Regards

 

[KevinADC]

The short answer is no, but maybe somone else knows something that I am not aware of so check back.

 

[PaulTEG]

The other user will need privileges to see your process running, are you trying to hide this from administrators, or do you have a number of users in the same group who can see each others workspaces ?

Paul
------------------------------------
Spend an hour a week on CPAN, helps cure all known programming ailments ;-)

 

[cheguvera]

Hi,

We have a typical setup.
A production server where we run our batch processes.

There are a set of read only users, which can login to the server for monitoring purpose and support.

Now, the user which runs processes, runs a process e.g.

$ some_executable_program -param1 -param2 -param3

The read-only users which login to the machine can run a command "ps -aef", they can see all the processes running on the server.

My question is, is it possible to hide the command details from appearing in the process list ?

Regards

 

[MikeLacey]

I'm not aware of a trick which will hide the information you're worried about - not if you call the java executable like that.

If you don't specify a password what does the java executable do? If it does something useful like ask for the password you might be able to start Java up on the end of a pipe and then feed it the user-name and password.

Have a look at the java documentation:

1 - Is there a way to get the java executable to hide it's command line switches (it is possible to do that from within the same process)

2 - Is there a way to get the user/pass validated some other way?

Mike

I am not inscrutable.

Want great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq219-2884

 

[Xaqte]

Although this more of a linux answer than a perl answer, you could try out grsecurity.

It has a restriction that allows a user to only view his/her processes.

Just my 2 cents!

X

 

[PaulTEG]

moving this user into a different group is what I would have suggested, which is pretty much what Xaqte suggests

Paul
------------------------------------
Spend an hour a week on CPAN, helps cure all known programming ailments ;-)