I've been trying for the past six hours to start and stop a service via systemctl inside a PHP webpage...

I've already:

• checked the php.ini on the php8.0-fpm

• already added the www-data (shell_exec('whoami');) PHP user to /etc/sudoers

• Checked the AppArmor and SELinux for conflicts with PHP. (it can create dirs, use fopen() etc)

The thing is, it can use systemctl is-active service@name, but cannot start or stop a process.

<?php
$name = $_GET['n'];
$cmd = "start";**
$service = "service@$name";

shell_exec("sudo systemctl $cmd $service");

trying to sudo does not work either.

I'm using nginx with php8.0-fpm

Edit: got it working using chmod u+s /usr/bin/sudo but I think that it's not safe enough...