Wrapping CGI and PHP Scripts

["Anand Atreya" <me@anandatreya.com>]

Hi,

    I have just recently begun using Debian and am in the process of
migrating a FreeBSD 4.4 server over to it.  This server had many different
users and allowed them to execute CGI and PHP scripts in their public_html
folder (or any folder under it) as their own user, not as the user of the
webserver, using mod_cgiwrap and mod_phpcgiwrap (from Steven Haryanto).  The
site where this was located
(http://steven.haryan.to/mod_cgiwrap/mod_cgiwrap.html) no longer exists, and
in hindsight, it seems as if mod_cgiwrap was not a very secure solution to
begin with.
    Does anybody have any recommendations on how to set up a virtual hosting
Apache server such that users can have CGI and PHP scripts execute as
themselves, without having to put #!/usr/bin/php at the top of php scripts,
and that is completely transparent to the user, also allowing them to place
scripts anywhere in their document root?
    (I have tried using suexec as it is installed with the Debian Apache
package, but when I tried to execute a script in a virtual host, not using
the www.domain.com/~username address, it did not execute the script, saying
it was not in the document root.  Does anyone know what the default document
root is for the Debian configuration of suexec?)

Thanks a lot.
-- Anand Atreya