Safe mode and safe_mode_exec_dir

Hello all, I'm having a bit of a problem making a particular configuration with PHP and Apache. Here's the deal: I want to have php running with safe mode, so i define safe mode = On on /etc/php.ini. I have this script that i need to execute two programas, with exec(). So, in apache, i define a <directory> directive, where i put "php_admin_value safe_mode_exec_dir /some/path/bin", so that the scripts contained in the directory are able to execute binaries in /some/path/bin. I also define open_basedir to ".". This doesn't work. In fact, defining safe_mode_exec_dir = /some/path/bin directly in /etc/php.ini doesn't work either. I noticed PHP was compiled with --with-exec-dir=/usr/bin, but i suppose that what we define in php.ini (at least) overrides that. I can only execute the bins with safe mode off... and i see nothing on the logs, because for what i can see php logs nothing if it cannot execute a program I'm using PHP 4.2.3 and Apache 1.3.23 (RedHat) Any help will be appreciated, Regards