I’m going to be using python to build a web-based asset management system to manage the production of short cg film. The app will be intranet-based running on a centos machine on the local network. I’m hoping you’ll be able to browse through all the assets and shots and then open any of them in the appropriate program on the client machine (also running centos). I’m guessing that there will have to be some sort of set up on the client-side to allow the app to run commands, which is fine because I have access to all of the clients that will be using it (although I don’t have root access). Is this sort of thing possible?
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As you already guessed, you will need to have a service running on the client PC listening on a predetermined port.
When the client requests to open an asset, your webapp will send the request to the running service to download the asset and run it. As long as your port no. is above 1024 and you are not running any application which requires root access, you can run this service without root.
But this is a very bad idea as it exposes the clients to malicious attacks. You will have to ensure all requests to the client service is properly signed and that the client verifies each request as valid before executing it. There may be many other security factors you will have to consider depending on your implementation of the client service. But in general, having a service that can run arbitrary requests from a remote machine is a very dangerous thing to have.
You may also not be allowed to run such a service on client PC depending on your comany’s IT policies.
You are better of having the client download the resource normally and then having the user execute the resource manually.
PS: You can have the client service run on a port below 1024, but it will have to start as root and after binding to the port drop all root privileges and change the running user to a different user using setuid (or the equivalent in your language of choice)