suEXEC and PHP

Hi, Apache 1.3.24, PHP 4.2.2 I am running a php script which executes something like system("scp -r -S ssh host1:/home/dir host2:/home"); The scp command executes as the apache user, in my case 'nobody'. This does not work, as the ssh authentication is not set up for user 'nobody' nor should it be. Setting a different user, as in "scp -r -S ssh myuser@host1:/home/dir myuser@host2:/home" deosn't work, ssh still tries to authenticate 'nobody'. First I tried running apache as a different user, 'apache', after setting up the rsa keys etc (ssh stuff) for 'apache'. The authentication then works but there are issues of the 'apache' user having read/write permissions on the directories host1:/home/dir and host2:/home. I thought that giving the 'apache' user permission to read/write these directories wasn't a very good idea. Now I am trying to use the apache suEXEC feature to do this, so that my php script can run as a different user (eg. myuser) who has all the right permissions and ssh configured. However, so far I have been unsccessful and suspect that suEXEC will not work with PHP. Does anyone out there have experience with this? Any advice would be appreciated. tia, Rich