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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-06T15:27:37+00:00

I have XAMP installed on my mac and I tried running the command –

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I have XAMP installed on my mac and I tried running the command –
ps axo user,group,comm | grep httpd to know what user apache is running as.
I am getting multiple results one for root and others as nobody. So what is apache running as? A root or nobody and why do I get both root and nobody? Is it because httpd started as a root and then became nobody?

The result of ps axo user,group,comm | grep httpd I get is – 

root        20 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd
nobody      -1 /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin/httpd

Secondly, when I execute the following script –
echo shell_exec('whoami'); (from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2509334/finding-out-what-user-apache-is-running-as)
I just get the result as – nobody

The reason I want to know the user is because the php engine is actually able to execute a php file(mysql_details.php) that’s outside the web server root directory. And this mysql_details.php has following permissions – rwxr--r-- i.e. just read permission for other and group. So if apache user is nobody then how can it execute mysql_details.php.

Thanks,
Prat.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The main Apache process is run as root- the other processes are run as nobody. The only processes that handle requests are those that are run as nobody, so that if anyone tries to access a file that nobody can’t access, they’ll get an error (whereas root would be able to access the file).

    If you need to execute the file, you can do a few things:

    1. Have nobody own the file. This will give nobody full read/write/execute access to the file, while preventing other users from writing or executing the file.
    2. Add nobody to a group, and give that group execute access on the file. Anyone who is in the group would be able to execute the file, but only the owner would be able to write to it (which would not be nobody).
    3. Allow anyone to execute the file. This is probably not a good idea, as any user would be able to execute the contents at varying permission levels. It’d probably be best to use one of the above two.
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