Copying Files to the Web Directory

I have a customer who insists on using Front Page, but wants protection against intruders on all his web pages. I envisioned a solution where he works in Front Page, then all his files are ftp'd to a directory on the server, opened and re-written as .php files with all links changed from "something.htm" to "something.php" and then copied to a directory on the same level called "test". So far so good, and this allows a php-one-liner to provide the necessary security. Now I'm stuck, because I have to copy these files from test to the location of the web page itself. And I've not been able to do it, and I can't do it, as far as I can see without giving world-writeable permission to the web directory. Here's the skeletal directory structure ... .../www.website.com /admin /upload /test The script (php page) I'm using to do this is stored in /admin and I want to copy everything in /test (and any subdir's it may have) to www.website.com. On the server, logged in as root, I can execute a shell script named newpub-web, located in www.website.com, which consists of:

    rm -f *.php
    rm -f ./graphics/*
    cp -fR ./admin/test/* .

I've tried executing newpub-web from a php script, which changes to the the working directory to www.website.com, as: exec( "newpub-web"), or system( "newpub-web" ) or passthru( "newpub-web"). None have worked. I've also tried executing the commands directly using system(), all without effect, no errors, nothing. Do I have to change the group of www.website.com to nobody? That seems to be an awful security hole. Stymied in Nova Scotia - Miles Thompson