I want to develop few scripts in php that will invoke following commands; using exec() function service network restart crontab -u root /xyz/abc/fjs/crontab etc. The issue is that Apache executes script as apache user (I am on CentOS 5), regardless of adding apache into wheel or doing good, the bad and the ugly group assignment does not run commands (as mentioned above). Following are my configurations; My /etc/sudoers root ALL=(ALL) ALL apache ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL As I've tried couple of combination with sudoer & httpd.conf, the recent httpd.conf look something as follows; my httpd.conf User apache Group wheel my PHP script exec("service network start", $a); print_r($a); exec("sudo -u root service network start", $a); print_r($a); Output Array ( [0] => Bringing up loopback interface: [FAILED] [1] => Bringing up interface eth0: [FAILED] [2] => Bringing up interface eth0_1: [FAILED] [3] => Bringing up interface eth1: [FAILED] ) Array ( [0] => Bringing up loopback interface: [FAILED] [1] => Bringing up interface eth0: [FAILED] [2] => Bringing up interface eth0_1: [FAILED] [3] => Bringing up interface eth1: [FAILED] ) Without any surprise, when I invoke restart network services via ssh, using similar user like apache, the command successfully executes. Its all about accessing such commands via HTTP Protocol. I am sure cPanel/Plesk kind of software do use something like sudoer or something and what I am trying to do is basically possible. But I need your help to understand which piece I am missing? Thanks a lot!