PHP script to write to /home/userid/ dir. popen not working. how?

Hi, I'm using PHP 4.1.2 to write a webmail. I'm using Procmail along with Sendmail. PHP runs as user nobody or user apache. Note that I have the user id and password in my PHP script from using HTTP authentication. FYI I'm running Mandrake Linux 8.1. The problem is: I want to write to some files (procmail recipe files) that'll reside in /home/userid. I tested running su using the below code $fp=popen("su userid","w"); fputs($fp,"userpassword"); fputs($fp,"cd /home/db/"); fputs($fp,"mkdir THIS_IS_GOOD"); //just testing if I can write to dir fclose($fp); exit(done); 1) Even when I enter the wrong password, my PHP code doesn't complain. It dutifully echoes done. Why? 2) Doesn't seem like it's running as it should. How can I achieve what I want to do - to write to a file (specifically to create procmail files called .forward and .procmailrc file) to /home/userid/ dir from a PHP script? PS: If you're not familiar with procmail, don't worry abt the procmail jargons! Gaukia _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com