Authenticating Linux system users from Apache/Web

[sevensins]

AOA,
what I would want to do is to authenticate a linux user via web browser to a centain directory e.g http://domain.com/protected , the .htpasswd one I know but I want to run some cgi scripts that execute some bash scripts and need a valid linux user who is in the sudoers. So in short when the user access http://domain.com/protected/abc.cgi his system user should be passed so the cgi scripts executes and in it the command sudo service httpd restart can execute.

I added the apache user in sudoers and it works but I need the linux users..

Any help/suggestion would be much appreciated.

[lambda]

i guess one way to do this would be to create a setuid root program that apache runs when it the user authenticates and hits abc.cgi. the setuid application will setuid(the-username's-uid) and then execute whatever script that needs to run as that user.

might be easier to do than messing with sudo.