Executing gcloud commands in bash - bash

I've spent 3 days beating my head against this before coming here in desperation.
So long story short I thought I'd fire up a simple PHP site to allow moderators of a gaming group I'm in the ability to start GCP servers on demand. I'm no developer so I'm looking at this from a Systems perspective to find the simplest solution to do the job.
I fired up an Ubuntu 18.04 machine on GCP and set it up with the Google SDK, authorised it for access to the project and was able to simply run gcloud commands which worked fine. Had some issues with the PHP file calling the shell script to run the same commands but with some testing I can see it's now calling the shell script no worries (it broadcasts wall "test") to console everytime I click the button on the PHP page.
However what does not happen is the execution of the gcloud command. If I manually run this shell script it starts up the instance no worries and broadcasts wall, if I click the button it broadcasts but that's it. I've set the files to have execution rights and I've even added the user nginx runs as to have sudo rights, putting sudo sh in front of the command in the PHP file also made no difference. Please find the bash script below:
#!/bin/bash
/usr/lib/google-cloud-sdk/bin/gcloud compute instances start arma3s1-prod --zone=australia-southeast1-b
wall "test"
Any help would be greatly appreciated, this coupled with an automated shut down would allow our gaming group to save money by only running the servers people want to play on.
Any more detail you want about the underlying system please let me know.

So I asked a PHP dev at work about this and in two seconds flat she pointed out the issue and now I feel stupid. In /etc/passwd the www-data user had /usr/sbin/nologin and after I fixed that running the script gcloud wanted permissions to write a log file to /var/www. Fixed those and it works fine. I'm not terribly worried about the page or even server being hacked and destroyed, I can recreate them pretty easily.
Thanks for the help though! Sometimes I think I just need to take a step back and get a set fresh of eyes on the problem.

When you launch a command while logged in, you have your account access rights to the Google cloud API but the PHP account doesn't have those.
Even if you add the www-data user to root, that won't fix the problem, maybe create some security issues but nothing more.
If you really want to do this you should create a service account and giving the json to the env variable, GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS, which only have the rights on the compute instance inside your project this way your PHP should have enough rights to do what you are asking him.
Note that the issue with this method is that if you are hacked there is a change the instance hosting your PHP could be deleted too.
You could also try to make a call to prepared cloud function which will create the instance, this way, even if your instance is deleted the cloud function would still be there.

Related

Lost bash got jailshell on shared host reboot - how to get bash back?

A few days ago my shared hosting ISP apparently had server issues and ever since I get jailshell rather than bash when connecting with .ssh.
After three tech troubleshooting sessions, they have not been able to restore my bash capability. They say they get bash if they log in. They seem to keep trying ineffective measures, and provide no details about them.
During the server restart I had tried to log in, and saw the jailshell then. Could that attempted login during server restart have caused this issue?
In any case, advice would be appreciated on how I can get bash back or tell them what to try on their side. Are there useful questions to ask, or things to suggest to them to try to resolve this?
Multiple machines have been used with .ssh with same results. I can FTP into my account (if going to root I see just a few jailshell files; if going directly to folder and then up to root I see all my files; the web serving is not affected).
-Ken

How to run shell command from joomla component

I'm writing a component in Joomla 3 and want to save the database periodically (eg after a user updates something). I'd like to therefore run mysqldump using shell_exec (or similar) but I can't get this to work. I suspect it's a permissions issue, but I'm not sure how to resolve this...
Any ideas appreciated.
Your little question inspired us to write a post on how to run SSH commands from Joomla. You can find it here: http://www.itoctopus.com/how-we-ran-an-ssh-command-from-joomla
The post is how we created a secure script that will unblock blocked IPs in CSF - but, the nice thing about it, it provides very clear instructions on how to run ssh commands from a Joomla extension (which is what you essentially need).
I really hope you enjoy this post and that it works for you. If it doesn't, then please provide feedback and we can help!

how to run a bash script at startup with a specific user on Ubuntu 12.04 (stable)

Being fairly new to the Linux environment, and not having local resources to inquire on, I would like to ask what is the preferred method of starting a process at startup as a specific user on a Ubuntu 12.04 system. The reasoning for such a setup is that this machine(s) will be hosting an Input/Output Controller (IOC) in an industrial setting. If the machine fails or restarts, this process must boot automatically..... everytime.
My internet searches have provided two such area's to perform this task:
/etc/rc.local
/etc/init.d/
I ask for the specific advantages and disadvantages of each approach. I'll add that some of these machines are clients and some are servers, but all need to run an IOC, and preferably in the same manner.
Within what ever method above is deemed to be the most appropriate, a bash shell script must be run as my specified user. It is my understanding all start up process are owned by root. So I question if this is the best practice:
sudo -u <user> start_ioc.sh
If this is the case, then I believe it is required to create a file under:
/etc/sudoers.d/
Using:
sudo visudo -f <filename>
Where within this file you assign the appropriate rights and paths to the user. Most of my searches has shown this as the proper format:
<user or group> <host or IP>=(<user or group to run as>)NOPASSWD:<list of comma separated applications>
root ALL=(user)NOPASSWD:/usr/bin/start_ioc.sh
So for final additional information, the ultimate reason for this approach, which may also be flawed logic, is that the IOC process needs to have access to a network attached server (NAS). Allowing root access to the NAS is I believe a no-no, where the user can have the appropriate permissions assigned.
This may not be the best answer, but it is how I decided to complete this task:
Exactly as this post here:
how to run script as another user without password
I did use rc.local to initiate the process at startup. It seems to be working quite well.

Create script to login and change time on Darwin

I work for a non-profit and recently had to take on some sysadmin responsibilities, and and it is a new area for me.
We have a Apple X Server that is running Darwin, and from time to time, especially on reboots, the timer on it gets out of sync which causes the machine to be unaccessible via share. I would like to write a little script that i can run that logs-in, updates the time, and logs out.
The main reason I would like to do it this way, is so that I can share that script user/pw with other non-technical folk. Currently, I login as root "Administrator" and type the following, "date MMddHHmmYY" (substituting the values MMddHHmmYY with the current date/time) and the problem resolves the issue.
I have read that only the root can change the date on the box, is it possible to create a user who logs in as root, changes time, logs out, without giving the root user info away?
I have not written a script before, and don't really know where to start. If you can point me in the right places, I would be very grateful.

WindowsAzure: Is it possible to set directory permissions within the web.config?

A PHP scriptof mine wants to write into a log folder, the resulting error is:
Unable to open the log file "E:\approot\framework\log/dev.log" for writing.
When I set the writing permissions for the WebRole User RD001... manually it works fine.
Now I want to set the folder permissions automatically. Is there an easy way to get it done?
Please note that I'm very new to IIS and the stuff around, I would appreciate precise answers, thx.
Short/Technical Response:
You could probably set permissions on a particular folder using full-trust and a startup taks. However, you'd need to account for a stateless OS and changing drive letters (possible, not likely) in this script, which would make it difficult. Also, local storage is not persisted, so you'd have no way to ensure this data stayed in the case of a reboot.
Recommendation: Don't write local, read below ...
EDIT: Got to thinking about this, and while I still recommend against this, there is a 3rd option: You can allocate local storage in the service config, then access it from PHP using a dll reference, then you will have access to that folder. Please remember local storage is not persisted, so it's gone during a reboot.
Service Config for local:
http://blogs.mscommunity.net/blogs/dadamec/archive/2008/12/11/azure-reading-and-writing-with-localstorage.aspx
Accessing config from php:
http://phpazure.codeplex.com/discussions/64334?ProjectName=phpazure
Long / Detailed Response:
In Azure, you really are encouraged to approach things as a platform and not as "software on a server". What I mean there is that ideas such as "write something to a local log file" are somewhat incompatible with the cloud "idea". Depending on your usage, you could (and should) convert this script to output this data to some cloud-based or external storage, vs just placing it on the disk.
I would suggest modifying this script to leverage the PHP Azure SDK and write these log entries out to table or blob storage in Azure. If this sounds good, please provide the PHP and I can give an exact example.
The main reason for that (besides pushing the cloud idea) is that in Azure, you cannot assume the host machine ("role instance") will maintain an OS state, so while you can set some things such as folder permissions, you can't rely on them sticking that way. You have no real way to guarantee those permissions won't be reset when the fabric has to update your role and react to some lower level problem. For example, a hard-drive cage on the rack where your current instance lives could fail. If the failure were bad enough, the Fabric controller would need to rebuild your instance. When that happens, your code is moved to an entirely different server, so the need would arise to re-set those permissions. Also, depending on the changes, the E:\ could all of a sudden need to be the F:\ or X:\ drive and you wouldn't know.
Its much better to pretend (at some level) that your application is running "in Azure" and not "on a server in azure", so you make no assumptions about the hosting environment. So anything you need outside of your code (data, logs, audits, etc) should be stored somewhere you can control (Azure Storage, external call-out, etc)

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