On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 04:48:37AM +0900, John Clisham wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm working on a ROR app that allows users to track batch computing jobs
> submitted to our high performance computing clusters. Anyway, a piece of
> functionality to that application is an online file browser to the
> server.
> 
> Net, I have a need to authenticate users to the Server's OS (I was
> thinking using Net:SSH).  Then, once authenticated, I'd like to run some
> ruby commands as that user vs. the 'non-priviledged user the webserver
> is running under.
> 
> Is this possible?  Any ideas?

The user will authenticate by providing their OS username and password?

Perhaps you could use PTY.spawn and run 'su - username'